


Intercession To Saint Anthony

by Lady_T_220



Category: White Collar (TV 2009)
Genre: Aftermath of Violence, Angst, Case Fic, Families of Choice, Friendship, Gen, Gun Violence, Hopeful Ending, Hurt Neal Caffrey, Hurt/Comfort, Major Character Injury, Medical Inaccuracies, Recovery, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-02
Updated: 2021-02-02
Packaged: 2021-03-13 16:07:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 24,110
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29156313
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lady_T_220/pseuds/Lady_T_220
Summary: Neal vanishes, Peter finds him, and everything goes back to normal. That's how it works. That's how it's always worked. Until it doesn't.(Set in an alternate Season 5, where James Bennet never escaped and Peter was never arrested.)
Relationships: Peter Burke & Neal Caffrey
Comments: 18
Kudos: 60





	1. One

"Boss? You're gonna' want to see this."

Peter glances up from his computer to see Diana hovering in the doorway of his office. There's a faint trace of baby Theo's spit-up on the shoulder of her dark blue jacket, something that on any other day he'd point out with amusement, but the look on her face stops him dead. 

"What you got?" he asks instead. 

"VHS tape. Arrived by mail this morning. I.T. just got done converting it into something we could actually watch." She pauses for a moment. "Peter... it's about Caffrey."

Peter inhales sharply. "You're sure?" he asks.

Diana's face hardens. "Very," she says. "Jones has it cued up in the conference room. We haven't watched it through yet, only enough to confirm his identity. Thought you'd want to be there."

Neal's been gone for over a week. He'd just finished an under-cover job, breaking open a real-estate and mortgage fraud case, when his newly returned anklet transmitter had suddenly cut out on his way home. The broken anklet had been found four hours later in the back of a refrigerated truck headed to Hoboken and despite the Marshals leaping on the opportunity to declare Neal a fugitive, the cynical, suspicious little voice in Peter's head has been niggling about it ever since. It certainly could have been intentional, but nothing about Neal's latest disappearing act quite adds up. 

They'd had _plans_. In the months since James Bennett had been caught by half a dozen FBI agents, smoking gun quite literally in hand, Neal had worked like a dog to distance himself from his father. They'd cracked Pratt's web of corruption together, brought a lot of dirty cops to justice, and his efforts had resulted in finally being offered a legitimate second chance at commutation. He wouldn't be stupid enough to throw that away on a whim. Add to that, Mozzie had been loitering around Peter's periphery like an increasingly paranoid wet weekend ever since Neal vanished. He seemed even more worried about Neal than Peter was and that on its own raised more questions than Peter was comfortable thinking about. 

"You coming?" Diana prompts.

Peter sighs as he stands and grabs his jacket, following Diana through to the adjoining conference room. On the wall, the screen is frozen on paused grey static, Jones tapping the remote control pensively against the palm of his hand as he waits. 

"Play it," Peter orders, rounding the desk. "He cut his anklet eight days ago and the Marshalls have found nothing. If he's run again, I want to know how far and why."

Jones' gaze flicks to Diana for a moment, something silent exchanged between them before he nods and presses the play button.

On the screen, the static swirls for a moment, white noise hissing before the image resolves into the grainy, low-res hum of old video tape. It's a seemingly still image of a grey concrete wall, the camera shaking slightly before it pans down to show the figure of a man seated in a metal chair. His head is tilted forwards, matted dark hair obscuring his face, his arms pulled back tightly as if bound. His shirt, though torn and dirty is identical to the one Neal was wearing on the day he disappeared, but it's not until the figure raises his head and stares directly at the camera that Peter knows for sure. Neal's face is swollen and bruised, one eye livid purple and puffed shut, but the colour of the other is unmistakable. 

"My name..." 

The man on the tape winces, voice wavering. "My name is Neal Caffrey. This is a message for FBI special agent Peter Burke." Neal exhales shakily. "Your snitch was in our way, so we have removed your snitch."

Peter's knuckles tighten against the chair-back he's leaning against, lips thinning as Jones shoots him a concerned glance. On the screen, Neal flinches hard, a gasp caught in his throat though there is no obvious reason as to why. 

"We have no-" Neal's voice fails him and he swallows hard, expression tight and pained. "-No demands. There is no ransom. This is an object lesson." 

"Diana," Peter murmurs. "Get that tape from IT and take it down to forensics, I want everything we can possibly find out about it."

Diana nods in understanding, looking away as Peter's expression turns grim. On the tape Neal shakes his head pitifully.

"I am a traitor and sh-should-" Neal's breathing stutters, his swollen face crumpling. "Please don't do this." There's a pause, a moment of pregnant silence before Neal jerks hard in his bonds, crying out in pain for ten lurching, breathless seconds as he twitches and seizes in the chair. It only stops when he slumps heavily forwards and for one agonising moment the heaving of his shoulders is the only movement visible. A string of reddened drool slides wetly from his mouth as he coughs and when he finally speaks again his voice is faint. "I will s- suffer the... the consequences of my actions."

When he next looks at the camera his blood-smeared, beaten face seems almost surprised, lips parting on a cry before a gunshot rings out and Neal's right knee violently explodes, blood and pulverised flesh splattering the concrete. It's the force of an almost point-blank shot, ripping through bone and sinew, leaving a gaping, red-black hole as Neal screams. Even through the shitty TV speakers the sound is animalistic and primal, agony ripping at his throat as blood gushes thickly from the tattered hole blown in his pant-leg. It soaks swiftly down his calf as Neal sobs and chokes, shaking violently as a second voice takes over on the recording. It sounds robotic and distorted as if muffled through a voice-changer, though the message is perfectly clear.

"Bullington Centre. If you hurry he might still be alive."

The recording ends, a hiss of static filling the screen before it returns to black, only Peter's hard, furious breathing audible in the sudden silence. 

"Jones," Peter barks, "Find out where the Bullington Centre is. Diana, how long was this tape in the _goddamn_ IT room?"

"Only a couple of hours," Diana manages. "But it came through the mail, it could have been days."

"I don't want to hear it," Peter snaps. "We find him, we get him back. End of story." 

"It's an abandoned mall," Jones interrupts, looking up from where he'd been typing furiously on his laptop. "In Jersey. I'll get local PD on it."

Peter growls and stalks out of the conference room, barreling down the stairs and towards the elevators, Diana hot on his heels. 

"Where are you going?" Diana asks.

"Apparently, Jersey," Peter says, jabbing at the call button angrily. 

"Then I'm driving," Diana states. "You're too pissed off to think straight and it's better for everyone if we both get there in one piece."

\---

It takes nearly forty-five minutes, even with the blue lights on the car cutting through the city traffic and Diana speeding the rest of the way like the Holland tunnel has personally offended her. 

The mall building is a sprawling concrete monstrosity, squatting in the middle of a parking lot peppered with scrubby weeds and stunted looking saplings. There's an ambulance parked near the main doors, though as they pull up next to the local PD's cars Peter can already see the back of it is empty. As he climbs out of the Taurus a harried looking sergeant makes his way over, the morning sunshine already making sweat glisten along his pinking forehead.

"Agent Burke?" he asks. "We have officers currently searching the buildings. There's no sign of anyone yet, but as you can see, it's a big place." He gestures vaguely at the dilapidated structure. "Do you have any idea where your guy might be?"

"Concrete," Peter says, striding towards the cracked-open doorway. "Unpainted. Probably a storage or maintenance area. Maybe even a parking structure or delivery bay. I want your men to focus on anywhere that fits that kind of description."

The inside of the old mall smells strongly of damp and black mould, and Peter's nose wrinkles. He spots a handful of uniformed men walking along the length of the empty storefronts on the first balcony and shakes his head. "If they left him where they made the tape, he won't be visible out front. Tell your men to get inside, check the back rooms of every store in this place."

The sergeant nods his understanding and turns away, talking into his radio as Peter and Diana head deeper into the cavernous structure. 

"So where do we start?" Diana asks. 

Peter looks around, hands on his hips, face creased in thought. "A lot of these places have staff hallways," he says. "Access routes that link the back of each store to the loading area so people can move stock around or go on a break without having to go through the shopfloor." His eyes narrow, gaze thoughtful. "There," he says suddenly, striding off towards an alcove half hidden by the dusty skeleton of a dead plant, Diana and the uniformed Sergeant hurrying after him. 

At first glance the alcove looks empty, it's just the faded remnants of a 'Staff Only' sticker and a scuffed doorhandle that give away its actual purpose and Peter yanks the door hard, the squeal of rusted hinges reluctantly yielding to open into the service space beyond. 

The narrow hallway it reveals is dark and musty-smelling. Peter pulls out the mini torch from his pocket and shines it down the length of the corridor. At the far end is a blank, unfinished concrete wall, where the hallway splits left and right to traverse the back of the mall's retail spaces. 

"Split up," he says to Diana. "Take the left. You find anything, you call me."

"On it," she replies. She flicks her fingers at the sergeant. "You're with me."

\---

When he reads the reports later, Peter will learn that it's the smell that tips them off first. The search team describe it as decay, but when Peter gets there that's not quite what it puts him in mind of. It's more like the rancid, metallic tang of a dirty butcher's shop at the end of a hot day. Meaty and so thick you can almost taste it on the stale air. One of the uniforms radioed it in, the stink permeating through the shutters of an empty JCPenney, finally concentrating their search into the warehouse spaces behind. By the time Diana gets there they've already found the scene of the video. The summer heat has rendered the pooled blood ripe and festering, the floor black and sticky, white fragments of shattered bone and gristle still peppered across the tiles.

The metal chair is shoved up against one wall, but it's only in person that Peter sees there are two electrical cables connected to its back legs. One is still wired to an old car battery and suddenly Neal's twitching and spasming makes a terrible kind of sense. 

"Jesus," Diana mutters, crouching down to look closer. There's a metal tray kicked off to the side, still part filled with blood-stained water. "They were torturing him," she says quietly. "Peter, this is days old."

"Doesn't change anything," Peter grits out. "Not until after we find Neal. In whatever condition he's in, we find him, and we take him home." 

"Agent Burke!" one of the uniformed officers yells suddenly, voice echoing across the empty storeroom. "I think we got something."

Peter shoots Diana a look before jogging over to join them "What'd you find?" he asks.

"Blood trail," the officer replies, pointing to the browned smear by his boots. "Goes under this door. Looks like a janitor's closet but it's locked." He rattles the handle as if to demonstrate and Peter has to resist growling at him. 

"So break it down," he orders. 

The officer nods in understanding before stepping back a couple of paces, gearing up before landing a hard kick to the wood just beside the handle. It creaks and fractures a little but it takes two more attempts before the latch finally gives way, the door slamming inwards with a loud bang. The lock takes a chunk of the doorframe with it, scattering wood shards across the entrance to the narrow room.

It's dark inside, but the limited light spilling in from the grimy windows is just enough to make out several rows of metal shelving. They're all stacked high with old catalogues and file boxes spilling paper everywhere but, behind them, down on the floor, just visible among the scattered pages, is a bare human foot. 

"Get the paramedics in here," Peter yells. "And get me some damn light."

Peter scrambles over the first pile of boxes, paper sliding like an avalanche in his haste, his own torch barely even cutting through the gloom but what he sees is enough to make his stomach churn.

Neal looks like he's dead. His skin is ashen and grey, face bloated and body unnaturally still. When Peter crouches down to touch him, he's cold and clammy, reeking from where he soiled himself in the days since he was abandoned but Peter doesn't hesitate to drop to his knees, uncaring of the filth as he presses his fingers to the artery in Neal's neck.

For a horrible second he thinks maybe they're too late, fingertips digging harder into cool flesh before he finally feels it. There's the faintest flutter. A tired attempt at a pulse. It's thin and sluggish, but still present. 

It's little comfort.

Neal doesn't so much as twitch at Peter's touch as he cradles Neal's beaten face frantically, calling his name like it might rouse some dormant spark of life. His body remains motionless like a dropped ragdoll, limply sprawled where he was thrown. His arms are still tightly pulled behind him and when Peter leans over to find out why he grits his teeth in impotent fury. It's just a simple pair of handcuffs. They're standard issue, the kind that Peter knows Neal could have slipped in a heartbeat, but his hands have been balled up tightly into fists and then wrapped around with thick mitts of duct tape. There are layers upon layers of it, ending just below raw and bloodied wrists. Peter reaches for the keys to his own set of cuffs, testing them against the latch and releasing the mechanism when it proves to be a match. He yanks the restraints open and releases Neal's arms, the metal edges of the bracelets tacky with torn skin and the crusted fluid from burn blisters.

When the search team bring in a better set of lamps, and the real extent of Neal's injuries become clear, Peter's almost tempted to ask them to turn the lights off again. His torturers obviously paused long enough to tie a tourniquet around Neal's thigh before dumping him, because there's a viciously tight band of plastic twine cutting into the flesh just above his blown-out knee. It may technically have stopped him bleeding out, but as a consequence the whole of his lower leg has swollen and darkened, the toes of his bare foot already mottled blue-black.

"Jesus Christ," Peter breathes, swiping a hand down his face in horror. "Oh, kid..."

"Paramedics are here," Diana says from the doorway. 

Peter nods in understanding and reluctantly gets to his feet, making space for the medics as they pile in to the limited area around Neal's discarded body. The expressions on their faces are pretty much all Peter needs to know, and he turns his back as they start pulling kit from their packs and shoving boxes aside to make room for the backboard.

The warehouse seems unnaturally hushed as Peter steps back over the threshold. The search team looks sombre and discouraged, milling around a little aimlessly now Neal has been found. Peter ignores them, instead pulling out his phone and dialling the office. 

"Jones," he says. "I need you to get forensics over here. We found Neal-" He presses his lips together hard, eyes squeezing closed for a second as he fights down the fury still boiling inside him. "He's still alive, just about, but it, uh-" he trails off for a second. "I'll be honest, it's not looking good." He takes a breath, letting Jones' reply sail past him unheard. "I want these sick assholes caught. We put everything we have on this. If they left so much as a hair or a single damn fingerprint behind It needs to be found."

He looks down at the handcuffs still dangling from his fist. Neal's skin is embedded in the cracks, Neal's blood darkening the metal and suddenly all he can think about is Neal dying. Another day at most, maybe even just a matter of hours and they would have been too late. They might be too late even now, even though they found him, and the realisation lurches hard inside his chest. He can't stop seeing it suddenly; Neal alone in the dark, discarded like garbage. Neal suffering, in unspeakable pain, never knowing if he'll ever be found. Neal's heartbeat so faint under the tips of his fingers-

"Peter?" Diana appears at his elbow, startling him. He's still clutching the now-silent phone to his ear and he shakes his head dazedly. The screen says Jones rang off minutes ago but he has no recollection of it happening. Diana looks at him in concern and silently takes the cuffs from his unresisting hand, dropping them into a plastic evidence bag she must have got from one of the uniformed officers. 

"Come on," she says "They're taking Neal to the hospital. I said we'd follow."

Peter lets her nudge him in the right direction, the sudden breeze and sunlight when they emerge from the darkened, stuffy hallways making it all seem somehow unreal. Peter half thinks it should be as dark and oppressive outside as it was within, but it's barely even lunchtime on a sunny Tuesday morning and he climbs into the Taurus silently as Diana flips on the lights and follows the ambulance's wailing sirens.

The speed they're going somehow does not feel reassuring. Especially when they reach the hospital and Neal is whisked away while Peter and Diana have to be funnelled through the usual avenues of endless waiting and repetitive form-filling. They're given a private waiting room, the kind usually reserved for families in mourning, but it's a concession Peter knows is due more to his badge than anything else. It saves him from pacing the public areas like a restless tiger though so he supposes the generic armchairs and rickety coffee table have at least served their purpose. He sends Diana in search of coffee and lunch, texts Jones who assures him Forensics are already en-route, then calls the Marshalls to update them that Neal is no longer missing, nor was his disappearance voluntary. He's just contemplating whether he has time to call El when a harassed looking young man appears at the door. Given the scrubs he's wearing Peter assumes he works at the hospital though Peter's pretty sure he owns socks older than this kid.

"Agent Burke?" the man asks. "I'm Doctor Waters, I understand you're here with the trauma patient brought in from the Bullington Centre?"

Peter hesitates for a second in surprise then nods. "His name's Neal Caffrey. How is he?"

The doctor frowns slightly. "Could we sit for a moment? We need to talk."

Peter nods numbly, sliding down in one of the lumpy armchairs as Doctor Waters takes up a perch on the coffee table. The surface bows slightly under his weight though the doctor doesn't seem to notice. 

"No good news ever starts with those words," Peter says warily.

The doctor stares down at his hands for a moment before fixing Peter with a serious expression. "Unfortunately, right now Neal's condition is still critical. He is acutely dehydrated, he has multiple cuts and contusions as well as several suspected bone fractures and minor burns. However, of most concern right now is his leg. I understand that you are listed as his medical proxy, is that right?"

Peter nods slowly. "He's an FBI asset and I'm his handler. He doesn't have any next of kin so it kind of fell to me by default."

The doctor frowns. "I'll be honest, Agent Burke, there is a significant chance that we are not going to be able to save Neal's leg. We will do everything we can but I need to make you aware that the attending surgeons are thinking very seriously about the possibility of amputation."

Peter feels the breath stutter in his lungs, horror washing cold through him. "Amputation?" he repeats dumbly. "You can't- That's..."

"It's a major decision," Doctor Waters says. "But it's not a course of action any of us would ever suggest lightly."

Peter just gawps at him, the young man taking a deep breath before continuing. 

"The bullet wound has partially severed Mister Caffrey's lower leg. In the very best of situations, if Neal had received medical attention immediately after the injury to his knee, there might have been options to reattach it. He would have been looking at several months of intensive treatment; Surgery initially to rebuild the joint, as well as skin grafts and extensive physiotherapy. Even then, the prognosis would still have included a high chance of life-long mobility issues. But if I may be blunt, his assailant was armed for bear. The wound is large and the bone loss is significant. Put plainly, there is almost nothing left of the joint itself. But when you add in the complication of not just the delay in treatment but the tourniquet that was applied, the situation changes."

"For the worse," Peter states shakily.

The doctor nods. "Unfortunately yes. The pressure of the tourniquet severely restricted blood flow to the lower leg. It probably saved his life, but the leg is very badly infected and there is already evidence of necrosis in his foot. Do you understand what this means?"

Peter just blinks at him, too dazed to respond. 

The doctor's mouth draws into a sympathetic frown. "Necrosis is tissue death, Agent Burke," he says gently. "It means the area below the tourniquet has begun to die. This is not something we can heal. We can't bring dead tissue back to life. His foot is currently the most severely affected part and as it stands it will almost certainly have to be partially amputated regardless of any other decisions. But combined with the trauma of the wound to his knee, the delay in treatment, and the risk of sepsis and other complications, the chance of performing successful surgery to reattach the severed muscle and rebuild the joint at this time is incredibly low."

The doctor sighs heavily, looking down at his hands pensively. "I'll be honest, amputation at the mid-thigh sounds like a drastic decision but it is the option with the best outcome and the least risk of complication. The sooner we can do it the better the prognosis is likely to be. It will reduce the risk of the infection spreading, he should suffer less pain, and Neal will heal faster from it."

"And you're asking my permission." Peter surmises.

The doctor frowns. "Ideally, we would ask you to sign the standard waivers in Neal's stead." 

"And if I refuse?" Peter asks numbly.

"Then we will do what we can," the doctor says. "Regardless he will have to undergo surgery to remove the dead tissue from his foot, and an emergency procedure to try and stabilise what's left of the lower leg along with treatment to try and mitigate the effects of the tourniquet. But if that is unsuccessful then amputation will become necessary despite any efforts to the contrary. All we will have achieved is dramatically increasing his risk of infection."

"It's not exactly much of a decision," Peter chokes. He shakes his head, eyes squeezing shut. "If you go in there to take his leg, and find out it's not as bad as it looks-"

"Then we will stop and reassess," the doctor assures him. "But Neal is very badly injured, Agent Burke. His body is in a weakened state from the abuse he has suffered and the concern is that if the infection spreads it could put his life at risk. Please understand, I would like your permission, but ultimately when we begin surgery we will have to do whatever is in Neal's best interest. Those are decisions which will be made in response to whatever happens when he's on the table."

Peter swallows hard, hanging his head. The carpet seems to swirl, lurching momentarily between his feet and he closes his eyes tightly against the sudden swell of nausea. "So what you're saying is, if I say no, you have to cut his foot off and he could face months of surgery which may or may not work, but that's only if infection doesn't kill him first. But if I say yes, you're going to cut his leg off. And even if I do say no, you might end up just cutting his leg off anyway. That's- that's what you're telling me, right? That's the situation?"

"Yes," Doctor Waters says simply.

Peter can feel his eyes burning, a toxic mix of rage and sorrow. "God. What kind of a choice is that?" He shakes his head helplessly and stares down at his hands, at his useless fingers. The nail beds on his right hand are still dirty with Neal's blood, right in the creases where it hasn't quite washed off. "I guess, do what you have to," he manages eventually. "Whatever is best. But just... take care of him? Please?"

"Of course," the doctor murmurs. "He'll be in good hands." He gives Peter's tense shoulder a consoling squeeze before excusing himself.

Peter sits there for a very long time.

No matter how he replays the conversation in his head the outcome is always the same. Neal's going to lose his leg, and Peter just agreed to let them do it. 

\---


	2. Two

It's a very long six hours that follows. Peter signs a lot more forms and Neal is taken into surgery. Diana leaves Peter with a disappointing hospital canteen sandwich and the promise she will take the lead on Neal's kidnapping personally. 

"I don't want to dump this on you," Peter murmurs. "But I can't leave."

"You can't be objective about it either," Diana points out. "If Hughes was still here he'd have pulled you off this case the second Neal was found. It's too personal." She pauses a moment to nudge Peter's hunched shoulder. "You need to be here and Neal doesn't have anyone else. Let us do our jobs. If there's anything to be found, we will find it."

"Thanks, Di," Peter manages.

She shoots Peter a rueful smile. "Besides," she adds, "Someone's got to go break this news to Mozzie."

Peter manages a weak laugh, fixing a faux sympathetic expression onto his face until Diana is gone and he can sink back into one of the battered armchairs, miserable exhaustion washing over him as he settles in to wait. 

It's a long time before Doctor Waters finally returns to update him.

They ultimately decide to keep Neal sedated until he's a little stronger, and though the operation goes successfully he's still classed as critical. His IV is hooked up to rehydrating solutions and heavy-duty antibiotics and a cocktail of sedatives and painkillers so strong they have to be signed for and double checked every time he's given a dose. Visiting hours in the ICU are limited to a few minutes here and there, but Neal's face is so swollen and bruised that the first time Peter's allowed to see Neal he barely even recognises him. He looks small in the hospital bed. Diminished and lifeless, a nasal cannula snaking over his bruise-darkened cheeks, hair lank and greasy in a way that would dismay him if he only knew. The generic hospital gown he's been dressed in only serves to make him look sicker somehow, swaddled and infirm, like a corpse laid out for identification.

Peter supposes that he should probably be relieved that, out of Neal's litany of injuries, at least the sexual assault exam came back negative. At least he hadn't suffered _that_. Not on top of everything else. He has stress-fractures in his hands from the tape bindings, a cracked jaw and fractured cheekbone, two broken teeth, electrical burns across his back and wrists, kidneys bruised so bad the catheter bag is still filling with red, and there's a bandage-swathed stump where his right leg used to be. 

But sure, Peter thinks mulishly, let's all be thrilled that at least no one fucked him, right?

The situation chews at him. He can't even reach out and hold Neal's hand without hurting him. Can't rest a hand on his knee in a gesture of comfort because his knee is fucking _gone_. All he can do is sit and wait, watching the faint fluttering of Neal's eyes flickering back and forth under paper-thin lids as he trembles and twitches through drug-induced dreams.

Peter sits and watches Neal in silence until the nurses politely throw him out. He goes home, clings on to his dismayed wife the moment he sees her, and fails to get much in the way of sleep.

\---

Popular fiction would generally imply that waking in the hospital goes one of two ways: total awareness or, alternatively, total confusion. Neal does not particularly conform to either. 

He floats for a while, skirting the idea of consciousness, just kissing its surface enough to remember where he had previously been, and take a fair guess at where he is now, but there isn't a whole lot in between those two points. Being awake hurts; it's harsh and aching and entirely too much effort when narcotic sleep is so soft and welcoming in its stead. He dozes as people come and go and machines beep, movement just a little too far beyond his capacity. He hears people talk to him on and off, but mostly they talk around him. Strangers all of them, a low murmur of technical jargon that slips from his mental grasp as soon as the words are said. He sleeps and half-wakes then sleeps some more until eventually the pull of sedation grows less powerful and the inevitability of waking makes itself known.

In that liminal state of semi-consciousness his lashes feel impossibly, improbably heavy, the faint crack of light blindingly harsh as he squints through barely cracked lids. The world moves as a blur of white and fuzzily misshapen colours until his eyes inevitably slide closed again, exhausted. 

It's a process that repeats itself over and over though he doesn't quite know how long for. He might sleep for minutes, or perhaps it's whole days that slide past between those snatched glimpses of awareness. He has no way of telling nor any particular drive to find out. He is in hospital. He is still alive. These are things he knows. Beyond that, nothing else seems immediately important. 

\---

It takes nearly a week before Neal really begins to surface for more than brief moments at a time. The hospital began reducing the sedatives in Neal's medication after the first couple of days in the ICU, but after the trauma his body has suffered it takes time for him to do more than flirt with the idea of consciousness. The nurses tell Peter that Neal's semi-woken a number of times already that day, though not enough to be fully aware. They seem pleased with his progress though so Peter bites back on his anxious impatience. 

Peter's sat by the bed doing the crossword when he hears Neal sigh. It's a deep huff through his nose, out of place against the quiet stillness and Peter looks up sharply, just in time to see Neal's eyelids flutter open the tiniest crack. He closes them again quickly, a hoarse whimper dying in his dry throat and Peter surges to his feet, newspaper falling forgotten as he presses his hand against Neal's chest reassuringly.

"Hey, buddy," Peter murmurs. "You waking up? Got no idea how glad I am to see that."

Neal sighs again, face creasing as if in pain. His throat works dryly, lips parting on the faintest breath.

"Pet'r-"

"Yeah," Peter smiles, heart thumping suddenly with relief. "Yeah, it's me. How you doing, kid?"

A tear streaks wetly from Neal's closed eyes, sliding down the side of his cheek to dampen the hair above his ear.

"H'rts," Neal whimpers. 

"OK," Peter soothes. He rubs gentle circles across Neal's sternum, fingers trailing a line over a too-visible collarbone as he reaches over with his other hand to hit the call button for the nurses. "It's gonna' be OK."

He carefully cups Neal's still-bruised cheek, wiping away the damp tear tracks with the edge of his thumb as Neal lets out a tremulous sob. 

"Just breathe for me, kiddo," Peter whispers. "Hold on, just for a few minutes and they'll get you fixed right up."

"Agent Burke?" A nurse appears at the door behind him, a look of concern on her face. "You hit the call button?"

Peter glances over his shoulder at her. "He's awake," Peter breathes. "He said he was in pain, but- but he's awake."

The nurse raises her eyebrow in faint surprise but hurries over, gently moving Peter out the way so she can assess Neal more thoroughly.

"Neal?" she asks soothingly. "If you can hear me, can you open your eyes? Just for a moment, sweetheart, and we'll do something about your pain, alright?"

Peter steps back, retreating to the far side of the room as the nurse runs through a couple of basic tests before injecting more analgesics into the IV port taped into the crook of Neal's elbow. She feeds him a few ice chips as the painkillers kick in, Neal's tears slowing as he grows lax and quiescent. He seems half asleep again by the time the nurse finally lets him rest, barely conscious and breathing slowly. Peter leans against the railings on the side of the bed, warm hand circling Neal's forearm as if maintaining contact might somehow help.

"P'tr," Neal slurs faintly. 

"Yeah, buddy, I'm still here," Peter says. Neal hums drowsily in response, swallowing thickly before sighing.

"S' bad?" Neal manages. 

Peter squeezes his arm, head bowing for a second as he tries to formulate a reply. 

"Yeah. It's bad. I'm so sorry, kid," Peter murmurs. 

Neal huffs, brow creasing between closed eyes.

"Leg," he breathes. "W'z shot." 

Peter flinches. "Yeah. You, uh- they did a lot of damage," Peter says eventually. "Nearly killed you. The doctors tried everything they could."

"S'numb," Neal slurs drowsily and Peter squeezes his own eyes shut against the threat of oncoming tears. 

"That's good," he chokes out. "So long as it doesn't hurt."

"Mm," Neal agrees, features growing lax as he edges closer towards the pull of medically induced sleep. "Tir'd," he mutters a moment later and Peter nods his head.

"Yeah. You get some rest," he whispers. "I'll be here when you wake up."

Neal's brow smooths out, breath softening as he lets himself drift. Peter holds on to Neal's arm until he's certain that the medication is in full effect, only letting go when his own knees and back start complaining about spending so long hunched over. 

\---

Limited visiting hours in the ICU mean that, regardless of his promise to still be there the next time Neal woke, Peter is politely but firmly kicked out some time around mid-morning. Relieved slightly by Neal's brief moment of wakefulness Peter heads into the office to at least check on the progress his team are making in the search for Neal's attackers. 

He's not quite expecting the hive of activity he discovers on the 21st floor, and he's definitely not expecting the three agents from Organised Crime who seem to have set up residence in the conference room. 

Jones meets his eye from across the floor, phone wedged between his ear and shoulder as he hurriedly scribbles notes. His brows raise in surprise before he gestures over towards Peter's office in a silent request for Peter to meet him there momentarily. Peter nods, pausing only to help himself to some crap coffee that is still somehow slightly less crap than hospital coffee, while Jones wraps up his call.

"So," Peter says, when Jones joins him a few minutes later. "Organised Crime?"

Jones shrugs, unapologetically. "It hit a departmental intersection. Forensics managed to pull a partial print from the scene and it triggered an alert. It matches an unknown person of interest in a series of contract killings. So far they've got nothing more than rumours and a suspected partner, but Neal's a deviation from their usual M.O."

"What's the connection to the original fraud case?" Peter asks.

"Don't know for certain yet," Jones admits. "On paper at least there isn't one, but clearly someone recognised Neal and blew his cover."

"And let me guess, Organised Crime want to talk to him," Peter says. 

Jones nods. "As soon as he's able, they're going to want a statement."

"They're going to be waiting a while," Peter muses. "He's had a few brief moments of consciousness but he's not exactly lucid right now. He's on a lot of painkillers. They're weaning him off the sedatives but I don't think-" Peter's voice falters for a moment. "I don't think he even understands the full extent of what's happened to him yet."

Jones rubs the back of his neck awkwardly, huffing out a breath. "It'll stall them for now, but you need to let us know as soon as he's able to talk. He's the only witness we have."

"Next time he's awake," Peter promises. 

"You want to pull up the file?" Jones asks, nodding at Peter's computer. "Since you're here, we can get you up to speed."

Diana knocks on the doorframe, letting herself in as Peter logs in and pulls up the current case data. 

"Saw you arrive," Diana says. "Have to admit, you stayed away almost exactly as long as I thought you would."

Peter frowns at her. "The nurses evicted me."

Diana snorts and Peter manages a rueful smile. "El's going to sit with Neal this afternoon but ICU visiting hours are pretty brief. Figured right now I'd be of more use doing my job than cooling my heels in the waiting room."

The file finally loads and Peter turns his screen to the side, letting Jones and Diana see the information. 

"Lewis Hawes," Jones says, pointing to a picture of a driving licence. The man appears to be in his late forties and has lank, blonde hair. His thin face has sunken grey eyes that squint out from a sallow-skinned scowl and Peter clicks on, bringing up the man's rap sheet. 

Jones continues. "Local PD knows him as a thug for hire, convicted numerous times for assault, but he's also been circumstantially connected to a number of suspected contract killings. Organised Crime believe he's not working alone."

"He's the muscle, but his partner's the killer," adds Diana.

"Exactly," Jones says. "O.C. are after the partner, and they think Hawes will roll on him if they can pin him down. That's where Neal comes in. Neal's the outlier in their pattern. He wasn't taken with the intention of assassinating him. In the video it's described as an object lesson. It's a warning that our investigation was too close to something. I think our fraud case accidentally stumbled onto the edges of something bigger."

"Someone hired Hawes to take Neal and make us drop the investigation," Peter says.

"And Hawes brought along his partner," Jones adds. A click brings up a copy of the partial fingerprint found on the scene. "The print does not belong to Hawes but it does match a print found at the scene of a mob hit just over six months ago. Our current thinking is that Hawes wasn't hired to kill Neal, he was just hired to rough him up, but clearly this pair didn't much care if Neal died in the process."

"So where's Hawes now?" Peter asks. 

"Laying low," Diana says with a frown. "All we really have is the partial print, and Hawes by suspected association. Nothing concrete. We need to know if Neal can make a positive ID because without that we still have nothing. There's no hard evidence Hawes was involved with Neal's attack, and there's no ID on the partial. It's all just theory unless Neal can give us a match."

Peter sends a copy of Hawes' ID to the printer. "I'll stop by the hospital again tomorrow. See if Neal's up to talking by then. Hopefully I can get there before Organised Crime do. I'm not sure he's in a position to appreciate their bedside manner."

Diana hums in agreement. "Till then, I have another tree to rattle."

"The little guy?" Jones asks knowingly.

Diana raises an eyebrow at him. "Best connected babysitter in New York."

\---

There are fingers in Neal's hair. Slender ones, probably feminine, stroking idly against the top of his head. They have the languorous pace of someone who's likely been there a while but still seems disinclined to stop. There's perfume nearby too. Something floral and familiar. It's something Neal knows he should remember the name of, but the words shimmer and blur just beyond his grip. 

It's easier to open his eyes this time though, the fog less dense and the world less raw. 

He's greeted by blue eyes and a soft smile. 

"Hey Sweetie," Elizabeth whispers. 

"Hey," Neal manages. He grimaces at the dry feeling in his throat, accepting a few sips of water when Elizabeth offers, though he can't quite mask his wince at the twinge in his jaw. He rolls his tongue around, pausing momentarily to probe at the still raw gaps where teeth used to be and he groans pathetically, letting his head flop back on the pillow in resignation. 

"Ow," he moans. He raises his hand to rub at his sleep-crusted eyes and ends up instead squinting helplessly at his splinted and bandaged fingers. Elizabeth guides his hand back to the blanket, carefully tucking a clicker button under his thumb.

"Don't lose the button for your painkillers," she explains. "Do you remember how it works?"

Neal frowns in confusion. 

"You press it to get more pain relief," Elizabeth says. "The nurse told you, you can hit it as often as you need. It's programmed to stop if you try to take too much."

"The nurse?" Neal murmurs. He clicks the button twice with a wince, then a third time just for good measure. 

Elizabeth nods. "The nurse was here last time you woke up. You don't remember?" 

Neal shakes his head faintly.

Elizabeth smiles at him a little sadly. "You woke up a couple of times today already. You didn't remember anything last time either."

Neal closes his eyes for a moment, brows creasing in thought. 

"I remem'r Pet'r," he slurs.

"That was yesterday morning," Elizabeth says, still stroking his hair. "He wanted to be here today too but he had to work."

Neal huffs. "S'fuzzy. In my head."

Elizabeth laughs. "Well, you are on a LOT of drugs, Mister Caffrey."

Neal manages a weak smile. He sobers quickly though, blinking tiredly up at the ceiling.

"'Lizbeth?" he asks. 

"Hm?"

"What happened?"

El watches him closely, concern on her face. "What do you remember?" she asks.

"Shot my leg," Neal breathes. He winces as he tries to move, the attempt stalling almost as soon as it's begun, his face going grey with the effort. "Can't feel it," he whimpers. 

Elizabeth's expression wavers, sympathy molten in her gaze, though she never stops stroking his hair. Neal twists his head to look at her questioningly. The white of one eye is still ghoulishly stained with red, a remnant of the blow that cracked both his jaw and his still-swollen cheekbone. 

"It's gone, isn't it?" he asks simply.

Elizabeth exhales shakily. "I'm so sorry, Neal," she whispers. 

Neal swallows roughly, nodding once in understanding before turning his head away. He squeezes his eyes shut, flinching as he hears Elizabeth stand, the waft of her perfume growing stronger as she reaches over to gently cup his cheek. 

"You asked me the same thing last time you woke up," she admits. "And I will keep telling you as often as you need; We're going to get through this," she promises. "You won't be on your own, Neal."

He feels the press of warm lips on his forehead, cool fingers soothing his aching jaw, something unexpectedly maternal in her touch and he curls towards her instinctually, shaking and starved.

"You have me and Peter, and Mozzie and June. Even Diana and Clinton. We're going to do this together, you understand?"

Neal nods, though his eyes are still closed, his throat bobbing as he swallows down the sudden burning swell of tears. 

"It's OK, baby," El murmurs. "You can cry if you want."

She kisses his forehead again, her arm wrapping around him protectively as his lip begins to tremble, a rough sob muffled helplessly against her shoulder. 

"It's not fair," she soothes. The tip of his ear is hot against the palm of her hand. "You've been through so much. It's not fair. I know, it's not fair."

She holds him for a long time, feeling him quake apart in her embrace. It's intimate holding him this way, this fey untouchable creature rendered human in her arms, fragile and broken in a manner none of them could ever have expected. She soothes him back onto the pillow only when his tears finally begin to slow, reaching for the tissues on the bedside cabinet to dry Neal's damp face, his bandaged hands too stiff and clumsy to manage it himself. 

"Sorry," Neal chokes out.

"Don't you dare," Elizabeth chides him. "This is not your fault."

He blinks at her wetly. "Made y'r shirt damp."

Elizabeth raises one eloquent eyebrow. "Honey, you're in the hospital. Someone almost killed you. You could set my shirt on fire if it would help make things better."

Neal sniffs, nose still stuffy, but has no choice other than to accept her assurance without comment. Not because he believes her but because he's too tired and wrung out to argue. 

The button under his thumb is a vicious temptation, a reflexive squeeze enough to send more opiates pumping in. He doesn't even notice his trembling hand crushing it almost desperately into the sheets, as if morphine will somehow remove this sort of pain too. His heart throbs roughly beneath fragile ribs as he tries and fails to swallow down the feeling of helplessness. His pulse feels too fast in his veins, the added narcotic fog serving only to leave him raw and exposed. Reactions always so closely guarded grow unwieldy and desperate, impossible to control or suppress. Infirmity leaves him maskless, vulnerable, and he reaches out in sudden panic, flailing clumsily for Elizabeth's hand. She grips as carefully as she's able and doesn't let go, her fingers an anchor as time slides by in fits and jerks. Nurses come and go, but her grip remains constant, only tightening when Neal's surgeon stops by. 

His explanation of Neal's condition is concise and factual. It takes less than five minutes, the prognosis stark and simple enough for Neal to grasp even in his current state, and he cries again when it's done. 

His leg is gone. There was never any choice, and no matter how much he wishes otherwise it's not something that can ever be fixed.

\---

Despite Elizabeth's reservations, and something very close to a shouting match with an orthopedic consultant that takes place in a corridor while Neal is sleeping, Neal is moved out of the ICU and onto a recovery ward the next day. He's still hooked up to a ridiculous quantity of tubes, his body trailing catheters and drains and IVs in its wake, but the doctors consider him no longer critical so an orderly comes just before breakfast and dutifully transfers a groggy and confused Neal two floors away into a private suite. 

He's carefully spoon-fed a bowl of bland, pureed mush by an apologetic looking trainee nurse, a concession to his fractured jaw and inability to chew, though perhaps it's the glazed expression in his eyes that makes her dab at his face with a napkin like he's a drooling toddler between each mouthful. He barely chokes down half the bowl, but it seems to land like a brick in his shrunken stomach, the first semi-solid food it's had to cope with in over two weeks and he swallows convulsively for a few moments, half afraid it's just going to come straight back up again. 

He clicks the button for his painkillers, sleeps through the morning's visiting hours, wakes, grudgingly swallows more tasteless mush, and remains mulishly torpid as the nurses roll him around to bathe him and change the bedsheets. After that he sleeps some more. Anything else seems to take too much effort. 

The day vanishes, slow and ugly like a bruise. He doesn't wake long enough to see Peter, who sits unnoticed for nearly an hour at Neal's side, nor does he notice the short, bald, bespectacled man in stolen janitorial scrubs who sneaks furtively around the periphery of the ward. 

Unlike Peter, Mozzie chooses not to linger any longer than it takes to read and memorise Neal's patient file. His expression resembles something akin to thunder when he's done, cold and furious, though he seamlessly melts back into the general hospital traffic again before his presence is even noticed.

\---


	3. Three

"Gegs. Thirteen letters," June says. The morning's NYT crossword is partially completed on her lap, the clues diligently read aloud for Neal's amusement even though he's really only half paying attention. She's done the same every morning since he got out of the ICU, the days sliding by like molasses, differentiated only by the varied flavours and textures of mush that appear like clockwork whenever he's supposed to eat.

"Too easy," Neal murmurs drowsily. 

"Well, I'm glad one of us thinks so," she replies. 

"Scrambled eggs," Neal mutters, glancing over through half-closed lashes, the ghost of a smile on his lips as June sighs and dutifully fills the boxes in.

His expression shifts to one of resignation as a tall, dark-skinned nurse appears at the door, a tray of surgical gauze and bandages in his hands.

"Sorry to interrupt," the nurse says, "But I'm afraid visiting hours are about to end and Mister Caffrey has an appointment with the physiotherapist."

June tucks the crossword back into her purse and gets to her feet. "Of course," she agrees. She pauses to press a quick kiss to Neal's cheek on the way out, catching his bandaged hand gently as he raises it as if to chase after her. "I'll see you again tomorrow," she says. "And I'm sure Peter's going to stop by before too long, so you try and stay awake for once. Elizabeth tells me you've been out like a light every time he comes over. He's going to get a complex."

Neal nods his understanding, but still watches her leave a little mournfully, only glancing back at the nurse as he draws the curtain around the bed and sets his tray down on a nearby trolley. 

"Just need to change your dressings first," the nurse says kindly, smoothly flipping back the bed covers. Neal closes his eyes in resignation, turning his face away before he can be obliged to look. The glimpse he got when he was bathed was already more than enough. The stump is misshapen and angry red, swollen and bruise dark where skin and muscle have been stitched together. Some of the scabs are still weeping, though he's been assured repeatedly that it's not infected. These things take time, they keep saying. Unfortunately time feels like the only thing he has far too much of. The morphine makes his head fuzzy and the lingering pain in his cheek numb, but it doesn't seem to do much else, and days are long and unpleasant when everything below his hip aches almost continually.

It's a strange thing, he muses as the nurse carefully lifts and manipulates the bandaged stump, to have such a visceral reaction to your own body. Revulsion lodges like a hot, tight ball in his chest every time he's forced to confront it. Nausea lingers, every time careful fingers touch it, or sterile wipes clean it. Sometimes it takes everything he has just to keep his teeth clenched as tight as his fractured jaw will allow. If he loosens his grip, he thinks, he's not entirely sure what might come out.

\---

Peter arrives early in the afternoon, at roughly the same time as Neal's new physiotherapist finishes torturing him. The nurses have him sitting up in a chair for the first time, thick blanket over his lap, a half-eaten pudding cup discarded on the table by his elbow. He's surrounded by pillows in deference to the mostly healed burns on his back and ass, but the change in position pulls at the stitches and nerves in what's left of his thigh instead. It's a discomfort only exacerbated by the leg and hip stretches the physiotherapist insisted on putting him through before moving him. He feels wrung out and sore, pushed to the edge of his tolerance even by such simple tasks and he can only manage a scowl when Peter makes a sympathetic hissing noise from his spot by the door. 

Peter's tie is askew and his hair ruffled, as though he's spent the day running his hands through it. There are obvious bags under his eyes and a mayo stain on his shirt and Neal squints at him tiredly. 

"You look like crap," Neal observes bluntly.

Peter raises one eyebrow. "Feeling's mutual, buddy." He straightens from where he's been leaning against the door frame, crossing the room and dropping down into a visitor chair by Neal's side with an exhausted groan.

"Not all of us get to nap the day away, Sleeping Beauty," Peter says. "It's good to see you awake for a change."

Neal rolls his eyes, shifting again in discomfort, hissing as he tries and fails to pull himself straighter in the chair. 

"You alright there?" Peter asks.

"Fine," Neal grits out. "What do you want, Peter?"

Peter blinks at him in surprise. "I'm not allowed to visit you without an ulterior motive?" he asks.

Neal rolls his eyes irritably. "You've touched your jacket pocket four times since you arrived. You clearly have something you want to show me but you're worried how I'll react so just get it over with. I'm not a wilting flower and I don't have a lot of patience left right now.” He fiddles with one of his IV lines irritably, trying to loop it out of the way. “As soon as you show me whatever it is, I can finally take as many painkillers as possible without having to worry about making any kind of sense."

"You know that's not exactly a healthy coping mechanism." 

"Peter, shut up," Neal snaps.

Peter shakes his head in disapproval. "Straight down to business, then?" he sighs. "Alright." He pulls the folded print-out of Hawes' ID from his inner jacket pocket. The edges are already starting to look a little dogeared, evidence of being carried around for several days. 

"We have a couple of leads on the people who abducted you," Peter says, flattening out the photo. "But nothing concrete. We were hoping that you might be able to make an identification."

He holds out the print but Neal barely even glances at it before shaking his head, lips thinning as his scowl deepens. "They were masked," Neal says. "Two men. Covered every inch of skin. Only spoke through voice modulators. I can tell you a rough height and build, but most of the time they kept-"

He pauses for a moment before he clears his throat, blinking rapidly. "-They kept a bag over my head. They only took it off to make me film the video."

Peter sighs, folding up the photo and slipping it back into his pocket. "I'm sorry, Neal," he says.

Neal shrugs, looking away. "Not your fault," he mutters. 

The bruises on his face have faded from livid purple to a rainbow of blue-green-yellow, though his cheek is still puffed out and misshapen. His hands too have been freshly released from their splints, knuckles visibly swollen but otherwise intact. He looks _better_ than the last time Peter spoke with him, but still a very long way from _good_. 

"Organised Crime are leading the investigation," Peter says. "They're going to want a statement from you."

Neal grunts dismissively. "They know where to find me, but I don't have anything to tell them. I was walking home, and someone approached me from behind. Before I could turn, there was a bag over my head and someone was twisting my arms up so hard I thought he was trying to dislocate my shoulders." Neal shakes his head at the memory. "I didn't see them. I didn't hear them. They just hurt me, and for four days they wouldn't even tell me why."

"What happened after four days?" Peter asks.

Neal levels him with a disbelieving stare. "I assume you saw the video they made or you wouldn't have found me. That's what happened after four days," he snaps. "That's the sum total of everything I know. They didn't say anything. Nothing, Peter. Nothing beyond dragging me around and then electrocuting me for moving. I couldn't even ask why, since they beat me every time I tried to talk."

Peter's face seems to be trying to shape itself into an expression Neal has never seen on him before. It's somewhere between horror, fury and aborted guilt. It sits wrong on him, twisting and alien, and Neal hates it.

"Don't pity me," Neal grinds out. "Just don't."

"It's not pity," Peter says. "I'm furious."

Neal laughs, a harsh, ugly bark entirely devoid of humour. "You're furious?" he manages, voice raising to a shout. "They shot my God-damned leg off, Peter. They shot my-"

He falters, eyes squeezing shut tightly as he pants harshly through his nose. 

"I don't want to talk about this," Neal mutters. 

"Neal," Peter starts.

Neal shakes his head harshly, holding his hand up to forestall whatever else Peter might say. "Don't," he pleads. "Just go away."

Peter closes his mouth obediently but doesn't make any move to get up. He waits instead. He waits while Neal breathes; until he doesn't flinch when Peter takes his hand. He waits until the anger has withered, leaving Neal hollow and shaking.

"I can't do this," Neal whispers. "I woke up this morning and I could feel my leg, right there. I could curl my toes and feel the press of the sheets but it wasn't _real_. Just for that brief moment everything was normal and then I _remembered_. I remembered and it's never going to be fixed and I can't-"

He fixes Peter with a watery blue gaze. "I want to go home," he pleads. "I just want to go home."

Peter doesn't answer. He doesn't promise anything. He just holds Neal's hand and sits with him in silence until the nurses come and put him back into bed.

\---

The low mood follows Peter back across the river and into the office. He's pensive and distracted when he arrives and it takes him a moment to register that the bullpen is once again abuzz with activity despite it being so late in the evening.

"Peter!" Jones waves at him as he steps out the lift. "NYPD just called. Unknown male found in Queens. Prints match our partial from the scene. Think we found our suspect." 

Peter's heart leaps, adrenaline spiking and he hurries over, reaching for his cellphone. "Bring him in. We only have enough to hold him temporarily, but if we can get him to talk-"

"Yeah, slight problem," Jones interrupts. "We're a little late. And so is he. A complaint got filed due to a funky smell and a weird wet stain coming through a ceiling from the apartment above. John Doe is dead. Has been for at least twelve hours. Landlord called it in."

Peter stares at him blankly. "What?"

Jones wrinkles his nose in distaste. "No obvious signs of a struggle, but someone cut both his legs off, then left him strung up from a ceiling beam. He bled out on the scene. First responders said the floor looked like a damn swimming pool."

Peter's face scrunches into a scowl of frustration. "Damnit," he mutters. 

"Organised Crime are trying to formally identify him," Jones says. "And they're still hunting for Hawes."

"You think maybe it was personal?" Peter asks. "Disagreement between partners?" 

Jones shrugs. "Oh, I definitely think it was personal. But I wouldn't be surprised if Hawes turns up the same way."

Peter looks at him.

"Come on," Jones says, raising one eyebrow. "His legs were cut off. Right at the mid-thigh. That's not an opportunistic act. That took planning. It needed tools. You don't think it's a little too coincidental, given what happened to Neal?"

Peter sags at the suggestion. "I don't know what to think," he admits. 

"You don't want to know what I think," Jones mutters. "But it's about yea high, bald and has already put a hit out at least once in the past."

Peter sighs. "You think Mozzie has something to do with this?"

Jones shrugs. "I just think it's a little strange that the prime suspect in Neal's attack winds up mysteriously murdered in a thematically appropriate way."

Peter rubs his face, tiredly. "I don't know whether to hope you're right or not."

Jones shrugs. "No easy answers either way. You're going to have to talk to him, though."

Peter nods. "Yeah. But I'm betting he's not gonna' want to talk to me."

\---

The park is warm and humid, benches damp from an early-evening shower. Peter checks his watch impatiently, glancing up as the minute hand tick agonisingly past the hour. A folded copy of the National Enquirer lies conspicuously on the bench next to him, as mandated by Mozzie's last text.

"Nice weather for feeding the ducks," a voice says from behind his left shoulder suddenly and Peter rolls his eyes in resignation.

"Are we seriously back to all this cloak and dagger nonsense?" he asks tiredly. "I thought we moved past this."

Mozzie shoots him an indignant scowl. "The response phrase is 'Yes, but I prefer the pigeons,' in case you forgot."

"Oh, I didn't forget, I'm just not saying it," Peter mutters. 

"Hey, you were the one who called me here," Mozzie reminds him, slouching down onto the bench. "Much as you were the one who sent Neal on his last undercover job and ended up with him getting kidnapped and mutilated. I have to take precautions and you have no moral high ground, Suit."

Peter hangs his head, taking a deep breath. "We have a bigger problem here, Mozzie," he says, "The lead suspect was found dead this morning. Murdered in his own apartment."

"Oh how terrible," Mozzie drawls. "Forgive me if I'm not exactly overcome with pity."

"He bled to death after both his legs were cut off."

Mozzie pauses for a moment before shrugging. "How apropos," he says.

Peter growls. "This is no joke, Mozzie. For Neal's sake I just need you to tell me you're not involved in this."

Mozzie raises his eyebrows in surprise. "Me? Crawling around in the mire? Oh please, as if I would ever stoop so low. I'm thrilled that karma means there's one less cockroach roaming around in my city, but I assure you my hands are both literally and metaphorically clean."

"But you do know something about it," Peter insists.

Mozzie fixes him with a withering stare and Peter sighs. "Fine," Peter capitulates, "You can neither confirm nor deny."

Mozzie points one gold-ringed finger at him consideringly. "You're forgetting something more important," he says. "You and I are not the only actors at play here. No matter what you think about the likelihood of honour among thieves, Neal was liked. He had friends."

"Who?" Peter demands. 

Mozzie shakes his head. "He burned contact with most of them, thanks to you, but even if he was out of the game he was not without allies. Word gets around."

"And you had nothing to do with spreading that word," Peter frowns.

Mozzie shrugs. "If I mentioned his misfortune to a mutual acquaintance or seven, it was nothing more than understandable concern for our hospitalised friend. You would have done the same."

"The difference is that my mutual friends are a lot less likely to saw the legs off a suspect," Peter says, exasperated. 

Mozzie shrugs. "Couldn't have happened to a more deserving guy."

"Mozzie."

"What you really have to ask," Mozzie interrupts, "Is why you're so upset about this. Justice was served. The only reason you're arguing with me is because you weren't the one to serve it."

"Murdering a murderer isn't justice," Peter manages. 

"Then we will have to agree to disagree," Mozzie shrugs. "You and any state with the death penalty. State-sanctioned murdering of a murderer I notice you seem to have no issue with."

Peter pinches the bridge of his nose as if warding off an oncoming headache.

"Look," Peter tries again, "This guy, whoever he was, he was the best chance we had at closing the case. Not just at finding out _why_ they took Neal, but at solving a whole series of contract killings. We needed him alive, Mozzie." Peter sighs, shaking his head. "I'm assuming you already know he had a suspected partner. If you know anything about where we can find him, I need you to tell me. Or at the very least, call off the hit squad. Neal deserves justice, I get it, but he deserves answers, too. Surely you understand that?"

Mozzie turns away, lips pressed into a thin, stubborn line. "Fine," he mutters grudgingly. "But this is not a favour for you, this is only for Neal's peace of mind. The suspected scumbag in question has a bolthole. I'll send the details but you'll have to move fast. You're not the only person who's interested in his whereabouts."

"Thank you," Peter says genuinely. 

Mozzie huffs. "Like I said, it's not for you. It's for Neal. And we never had this conversation."

\---

By the time Peter gets back to the office Diana is waiting for him, cellphone in one hand and folder in the other. 

"Organised Crime sent through an ID on the John Doe," she says. "Formally identified as Henning Van Aardt." She thrusts the file at Peter's chest. "Dutch national. Entered the country on a fraudulent passport eight years ago. Disappeared off the grid right after. Interpol are very interested to know how one of their most wanted ended up exsanguinated in a top floor apartment in Queens."

"If they figure it out, tell them to let us know," Peter grumbles. 

"Also had a tip from Mozzie," she adds. "A couple of days ago I asked him to see if he could find Hawes. He finally came through."

"Did he now?" Peter frowns. "Alright. Take a team, let's get to him before anyone else does. There's still an unknown killer out there somewhere and we need Hawes alive if possible."

"Already on it," Diana says, hair flipping over her shoulder as she strides away. Peter watches her wave over a couple of other agents, issuing orders as Jones sidles up to him quietly.

"Mozzie came through on Diana's request?" He asks nonchalantly. "The little guy has quite a sense of timing."

"He just needed a nudge," Peter mutters.

"And the other thing?" Jones asks.

"Nothing provable," Peter says. "Apparently Neal has quite the fan club in the criminal classes."

"Well, he does tend to leave an impression," Jones concedes. 

Peter just frowns, tapping Van Aardt's file against his palm before heading up to his office. 

\---


	4. Four

When the toxicology report on Van Aardt comes back, it looks disconcertingly like the inside of an AP chem textbook. It's a convoluted cocktail of paralytics and stimulants, along with partially metabolised hallucinogens. The best guess the lab can make is that the intention was to keep Van Aardt conscious enough to suffer while his legs were sawn off, but sedated enough that he wouldn't struggle. They can't say for certain whether it would have been successful or not but Peter knows Mozzie well enough to figure that if torture was the intention then they probably succeeded. The thought makes him a little nauseous. He's honestly in two minds on whether he should tell Neal about it or not but he supposes that if he doesn't then ultimately Mozzie will, and it should probably come from an objective legal source rather than someone who's complicit. 

He supposes it will have to wait though, since for the first time Neal is not in his room when Peter arrives at the hospital. The duty nurse points him in the direction of the physiotherapy suite instead and Peter follows the signs until he reaches a partial glass wall overlooking what seems to be a small, modified gymnasium. He can see Neal inside, laid out on a padded mat, looking sweaty and ruffled as a pretty young therapist takes him through some sort of routine involving resistance bands. He looks pissed off and exhausted, a long way from the charming flirt that usually rises to the surface in the presence of attractive women, and Peter can guess from the pinched expression on Neal's face that he's also hurting more than he's probably admitting to. 

He waits until they’re nearly done and Neal’s been propped up in his new wheelchair before interrupting. He knocks on the door briefly before opening it and sticking his head inside. 

From the doorway he can see the sweat that's beaded across Neal's brow as well as the fleeting look of surprise on his face before it's carefully corralled back into studied neutrality. 

"Peter, what are you doing here?" Neal pants.

Peter flashes his badge at the confused-looking physiotherapist. "My apologies for interrupting, Miss, but may I please borrow my colleague for a few moments?"

The therapist looks from Peter's badge to Neal's pinched, guarded expression and plucks the stretchy rubber band from Neal's unresisting fingers. 

"I think we're pretty much done here anyway," she says carefully. "And Neal-" She leans down to fix him with a considering stare. "I know what you're doing. If you keep lying to me about your pain levels, it's not going to do anything other than make recovery slower. Is that understood?"

"Yes, ma'am," he mutters, sighing impatiently. 

"Good," she says. "We'll pick this up again tomorrow."

She nods at Peter as she lets herself out, leaving Neal parked in his wheelchair in the centre of the floor.

"I like her," Peter grins. "Perceptive."

Neal doesn't reply. He looks wilted with exhaustion though the set of his jaw is still stubbornly mulish, and he bats off Peter's attempt to push his chair with a snappish "Don't."

Peter holds his hands up in surrender, relegated to merely holding the door as Neal slowly and painfully pushes his new chair back in the direction of his room. 

His arms are shaking and his face red with the effort by the time they make it a little less than halfway down the hall. Peter can see the tremor in Neal's muscles, grip weakening and barely-healed fingers slipping inch by inch until he's finally forced to stop, unable to push any further, shoulders heaving in frustration. 

"Will you stop trying to prove that you're fine and let me push you now?" Peter asks.

Neal doesn't look in Peter's direction, makes no indication that he even heard the question, just hunches in on himself sulkily as if by making himself smaller the whole situation will somehow slip by without notice.

Peter sighs and takes hold of the chair's handles, guiding Neal smoothly back towards the recovery ward. 

The chair isn't particularly heavy, nor is Neal in all honesty, but it's enough that he can feel the effort it must take to turn the wheels using only his upper body. It's a kind of strain Neal's not used to expending, but especially not so soon after both surgery and an already exhausting physio session. He makes a mental note to talk to the doctors again about what exactly Neal should and shouldn't be attempting to manage unaided. Neal pouting and pissed off he can cope with. Neal harming himself through sheer bloody-minded stubbornness is another thing entirely.

The silence stretches, pointed and uncomfortable in a way Neal never usually allows.

"Diana picked up one of our suspects yesterday," Peter says eventually in lieu of anything else. "The one whose photo I showed you? He's currently refusing to talk but you know Diana, she'll get something out of him sooner or later."

Neal half-heartedly shrugs but doesn't otherwise respond and Peter sighs. "Look, Neal," he says carefully, "There's an update on this case that I need to tell you about, but I need to know that hearing it won't make things worse."

"Well, we'll never know unless you tell me," Neal mutters.

Peter sighs again. "Alright," he concedes, guiding Neal's chair through the ward. "Point taken. Have you heard of a man called Henning Van Aardt?"

"Can't say I have," Neal says. "Am I supposed to?"

"Not really," Peter admits. "He was one of Interpol's most wanted. Violent crime mostly though, not really your area."

"What'd he do?" Neal says flatly.

"Oh, all the good stuff; contract killings, interrogations, links to domestic terrorism. Never quite left enough trace for a really solid conviction. Vanished off grid a few years ago."

Peter parks Neal up beside the bed and takes a seat himself, folding his hands in his lap as he raises one eyebrow expectantly. 

"What does this have to do with me?" Neal says.

"He turned up dead yesterday morning. Tortured and mutilated. His prints match the partial we found on your crime scene."

Neal blinks at him, silent for a long moment as if not quite comprehending.

"He was the one who did this to me?" Neal eventually asks.

Peter frowns. "It certainly seems that he was involved. Between him and Hawes though I can't tell you who pulled the trigger. Not yet. We also don't know who killed Van Aardt, although-" Peter pauses, frowning in resignation. "It has been heavily implied that what happened to him was most likely payback. For what happened to you."

Neal's breath hitches, his body shuddering as he scrubs roughly at his eyes for a moment as if seeking composure. 

"Implied how?" he whispers.

"Both legs were removed, directly above the knee."

Neal's expression is impossible to interpret, halfway between horror and relief, a trembling, fragile ghost of emotion. "And the other guy-" Neal manages.

"Hawes," Peter supplies. 

"Hawes. You have him?"

"We do," Peter says. "He's in custody. There's a round-the-clock detail and they won't take their eyes off him. Not until we know _why_."

"Why?" Neal huffs. "I've never even heard of either of them, and the last case I worked was a small-time mortgage fraud. None of it connects."

"There'll be a link somewhere," Peter assures. "We just can't see it yet, that's all."

Neal doesn't meet his gaze, colour still high in his cheeks as he wipes roughly at his eyes for a second time before nodding. 

\---

Hawes is a scumbag, Clinton decides. There's a strong aroma of pot and unwashed armpits that lingers around him like a cloud as he sits grimly silent in the interview room. This is the third time so far and he's still giving them nothing. Jones flips a photograph of Neal onto the table in front of Hawes and taps it twice with his forefinger. 

"You know this man?" he asks.

Hawes just stares back at him blankly. 

"Alright," Jones shrugs, next flipping over a photograph of Van Aardt's corpse. "How about this one?"

Hawes' lip curls faintly but other than that he remains silent.

"Come on," Jones chides. "We found a cache of weapons in your apartment. Didn't take much to find the one that matches the bullet that blew out Caffrey’s knee. The muzzle still has blood splatter on it and the lab is matching the DNA as we speak. You really should keep your weapons cleaner, Lewis."

Hawes shrugs, eyes flicking away to stare at the security camera in the corner instead. 

"You and I both know how this works," Jones states. "You can make this a lot easier on yourself by telling me everything you know, and maybe we can come to some kind of deal on the kidnapping and assault charges. You keep playing this silent routine though and you might find that suddenly you're looking at homicide for your little Dutch buddy here too."

"I had nothing to do with that," Hawes finally grits out.

Jones shrugs. "I dunno, Lewis. Both these dudes ended up missing a leg or two and you're the only connecting factor? Looks awfully suspicious to me."

Hawes huffs. "You should be giving me protection. There's someone out there wants to string me up too."

"Oh, I can give you protection," Jones sneers. "Nice eight-by-ten cell, maybe? Good solid locks on the door. Keep you nice and safe."

Hawes just glares at him and Jones leans back in his chair, crossing his arms calmly.

"There was a five thousand dollar deposit into your account two days before you abducted Neal Caffrey," Jones continues. "It came from a shell company based in the Caymans. We know someone paid you to do it. I want to know who it was." 

"People pay me to do all sorts of things," Lewis sneers. "Might have been a grateful neighbour. Helped some rich old lady home with her shopping."

"Oh, you're a regular boy scout," Jones agrees. He unfolds his arms and leans forward, pushing a little further into Hawes' space. "We know someone paid you to take Neal. What did they want? Rough him up a little? Send a message? And that's where it should have ended, isn't it?" Jones raises his eyebrow as Hawes flinches, just faintly. "Oh, but you brought your buddy along as well, and he couldn't help adding a little _spice_ to the mix, could he? Was he the one that put the bullet in Caffrey's leg?" 

Jones smiles slowly as Hawes' expression wavers. "Suddenly the job you planned, a little beat-down to make an informant back off, is looking a whole lot like attempted murder. Someone sent you to rough up Caffrey and keep him out of the way for a day or two, but it all gets out of hand and the next minute you have not just the Feds breathing down your neck but someone else, too. Someone bigger and badder than you. Someone scarier." Jones' smile widens, cold and calculating. "Because it turns out Neal wasn't just some random informant you were supposed to put back in his place, was he? Neal had connections you didn't know about." Jones pushes the photo of Van Aardt's corpse closer to Hawes. "And your impulsive friend here paid for that mistake with his life."

Hawes exhales shakily, clenching his jaw. "I want protection," he repeats.

Jones leans back in his chair in satisfaction. "And that's something we can discuss, Lewis. But only after you tell me who hired you."

\---

Hospitals are a strange place. A space to heal and mend, but the constant bustle lingers, never quiet, never sleeping. There's always a constant awareness of others, as exhausting in its own way as any other crowd. It's a liminal existence, neither this nor that. No longer completely broken but not really mended either. 

Neal wraps his hands around the naked remnant of his amputated thigh. The doctors tell him he has to massage it, every day, to prevent adhesion in the wound as it heals. To prevent further pain. His hands are pale against the red of the scars, the nerves under his fingertips firing in fits and starts of wrong, wrong, and numb. The stitches have been removed, which is progress, but touching it is still an act of obligation and forbearance. He prefers it more when he can slide on the pressure sock and hide it all in the fold of a rolled-up pant-leg. Nothing to see, just a vacuum; an absence. 

Massage every day. Prevent adhesion. Prevent additional pain.

He'd laugh if he had the energy. Drugs numb the physical discomfort but nothing stops the ache of severed bone, tangible as a firm lump against the centre of his palm as he cups the end of his thigh. Sculpted flesh softens it, curved over and stitched in place, but it's there, always, under the surface. It's nothing like the feel of bone under skin elsewhere; collarbones, hips, elbows and ankles. They are familiar, comfortable edges. His thigh by comparison is a foreign landscape, blasted out of the foundations of what he knew. 

He remembers the warehouse, more clearly and more often than he'll ever tell. He remembers concrete and metal and the certainty with which he knew he was going to die. He remembers the pain there, too. He remembers screaming until he vomited, the mould-thickened dust of rotting paper burying him like soft, white earth. 

He remembers watching his paralysed foot turn from flesh-pink to bloated purple, dying long before the rest of him could follow.

Sometimes he wishes Peter had never found him, and that hurts most of all. He doesn't want to die, but he doesn't want _this_ either. You can't fix the unfixable and there's nothing in the world that can make his body whole again; that can return him to who and what he was. He has finally been forever altered, changed in a way neither prison nor Peter could have ever achieved. 

The doctors tell him he'll be transferred soon, to a rehab facility back in New York. Closer to home. Closer to Peter and Moz and June. He has no idea what's supposed to happen after that. Whether the FBI will wash its hands of him now he's useless, sending him back to prison for whatever remains of the time he's due, or whether he'll serve out his sentence wedged behind a desk in the bullpen, consigned only to watch from the sidelines as the world turns on without him. 

Hobbled, he thinks darkly. More surely than handcuffs and chains. He leans back, breathing deeply as he tries to quell the sudden racing beat of his heart. He stretches his hands out, scrubbing them frantically against the bedsheet, rubbing away the sensation of bone and skin and scars. He dresses as fast as his shaking hands allow, yanking on a clean tee shirt and sweatpants, covering his depleted body with shapeless folds. They're designer, courtesy of June, and probably cost more than Peter's entire wardrobe, but it still feels like sliding on someone else's skin. He misses his armour, his Devore and silk ties. He misses _home_. He shakes his head and levers himself into the wheelchair with a grunt of effort, pausing only to roll up the empty leg of his pants. He fastens it in place with a safety pin, frowning at the thought of poking similar holes in any of his suits. 

It's irrelevant in the end, he supposes. It's not like he's going to be able to climb four flights of stairs to reach any of them anyway. 

\---

"I want everything on Neal's last case," Peter states. "Backgrounds, connections, anything we might have missed. There's got to be something we're not seeing."

Late evening sunlight pours through the conference room windows, silhouetting Peter against the reflected brightness of the city outside. With Hawes and Van Aardt out of the picture, Organised Crime have decamped back to their own offices at last, leaving White Collar's bullpen a great deal quieter and tangibly less high-strung. Despite that, Peter's been nursing a low-grade stress headache for the past two hours. He needs sleep, but it's been in unsurprisingly short supply lately. 

Despite still technically having the lead on anything related to Neal's abduction, Diana dutifully flips open the case file and scans through it for probably the fifth time in the last hour. "Basic set-up. Herbert Kayle was running mortgage application fraud through his brokerage firm. He had a list of friendly local realtors willing to send him details of potential buyers in return for a little cash under the table. It's a mix of identity theft and faked mortgages but he was just about clever enough to make sure the money never linked directly to him. Neal went in posing as a hotshot new agent, eager for a bigger slice of the pie. Got Kayle on tape admitting to fraud. Open and shut deal, a probie could have handled it in their sleep."

Peter scowls. "What do we know about the kidnapping?"

Dianna leans back in her chair thoughtfully. "Hawes claims he never directly met the guy who hired him, they only ever spoke on the phone. Said he had a Jersey accent and a lot of money which doesn't really narrow things down."

"But it does take us back to Jersey," Peter muses. "Did he say why they picked a dead mall? There's plenty of abandoned buildings right here in the city, why go all that way?"

"He said it was part of the contract." Diana replies. 

"Or part of the message," Peter says. "Who owns the Bullington Centre?"

Dianna digs through the heap of folders piled on the conference room table before finally pulling one out. 

"Uh... Freemount Capital. They're an investment company. Bought the centre as a profitable concern four years ago but pretty soon after that they stopped renewing any of the store leases. Emptied the place out. It's been stuck in limbo ever since."

"How come?" 

Dianna tosses the file towards Peter. "Freemount want to demolish the centre. Local planners aren't so keen."

Peter flips through the pages thoughtfully. "It doesn't say what they plan to do with the site instead."

"No one knows," Diana shrugs. "They haven't submitted any alternative plans. It's part of the reason the demolition order hasn't been agreed. However, if Freemount neglects the building long enough they'll have no choice, it'll fall down on its own. At best guess I'd say Freemount are sitting on it until that happens. Local authorities are currently fighting to compel Freemount to maintain and reopen the centre."

Peter purses his lips. "Why buy a profitable mall, and immediately try to close it down? That makes no sense."

"Unless they weren't interested in the mall," Diana suggests. "What if they only wanted the land that it's sitting on?"

Peter rubs his chin thoughtfully. "Any idea why?"

Diana shakes her head. "No clue."

"What's so special about a couple of square miles of Jersey real-estate?" Peter ponders. "Any links to Neal's fraud case?"

"Nothing obvious," Diana says, "But unsurprisingly their financials are a maze. I can have someone look into it."

"Do that," Peter says. "If in doubt, always follow the money." He pauses for a moment, brows creasing. "We got Kayle because he was an idiot and admitted to the fraud. Did we ever find proof in his accounts?"

Diana looks at him consideringly. "They're still working on it. He did a good job covering his tracks."

"What if-" Peter leans forward, suddenly re-energised. "What if we were wrong? What if we didn't take out a small-time fraud, what if we just took out a front man?"

Diana blinks at him. "The money doesn't directly track back to Kayle because it isn't his money?"

"They're using the mall to launder it," Peter breathes. "Damnit, we didn't see-"

"See what?" Diana asks.

"Kayle. He's just a front. He runs mortgage frauds but doesn't pocket the money. Instead it funnels into a mess of offshore accounts and we still don't know where that money went. What if it came out here?" he says, tapping the mall folder. "At Freemount. According to the file, they claim they're paying hundreds of thousands of dollars in maintenance and security on a mall that clearly isn't being maintained and sure as hell isn't secure. All the while it's tied up in local planning litigation they can just keep pumping money through it in spurious fees. It's a laundry."

Peter jerks his chair back angrily, unable to stop himself from pacing as the picture finally begins to form. "We went after one guy, and without even knowing it ended up kicking over a hornet's nest. We should have _seen this_ ," he spits.

"There's no way anyone could have known that," Diana insists. "It was a milk-run fraud case."

"It's never a milk-run," Peter huffs. 

Diana sighs, face sombre. "Peter, you know if you're right, there's going to be more? Guys just like Kayle, running scams small enough to fly under the radar. We barely even dented them and they almost killed Neal for it."

"So we take down Freemount," Peter says. "The key has to be in Kayle's finances." He grabs the files, piling them up hurriedly. "Call the forensic accounting team. Tell them they're going to be working late."

\---


	5. Five

Neal has freckles on his shoulders. 

It's something Peter's never really noticed before. Hidden under crisply ironed shirts and narrow-cut vintage suits, why would he? But that version of Neal is not the man currently fumbling unsteadily as he attempts to master a pair of crutches. His balance is off, Peter can see that already. His weight distribution has been thrown out, the absence of his right leg altering his centre of gravity. The confident swagger of his hips is gone, the easy saunter replaced with a foreign stiffness and concentrated caution. For a man so used to relying on grace and agility it adds further humiliation to the awkward, hopping lurch he's been reduced to. Neal Caffrey does not hop. Except now he does. His biceps visibly strain as they adjust to carrying him, and he barely manages two lengths of the physio suite before he has to stop, his therapist trailing every movement, anticipating every fumble and trip, ensuring he doesn't fall. 

It's painful to watch those vulnerably freckled shoulders slumping in defeat as he all but collapses back into the wheelchair. _I hate this_ , his body seems to say. _I hate everything about this_. His therapist's praise only serves to weigh him down further, grinding in the wrongness of it all. Peter can read it in his face, the set of his jaw, the crease of his brow, as familiar as looking in a mirror. Peter doesn't interrupt them this time. He lets Neal paste on that insincere gloss when he forces a smile, but even that fits poorly now. The curl of his lip reveals a gap, a hole where there used to be a tooth and Peter adds it to the mental tally of missing pieces. The price paid for a case none of them saw coming. 

It's a fresh morning but Peter's been up most of the night again. He sees more of Neal's bed than his own these days but on balance the cost is bearable. The research paid off and the forensic accountants verified Peter's suspicion. One more commendation for Peter's gut, he supposes. Diana and Clinton are headed to Freemount with a warrant even as Peter waits in the hospital, pacing as he tries to formulate what, exactly, he's supposed to say now. 

We got them?

Justice will be served?

You lost your leg to a money-laundering scam because a psychotic sadist who wasn't even supposed to be involved couldn't keep it in his pants? 

Peter sighs, leaning his head back against the cool white of the hospital wall. He only stirs himself long enough to escape back to Neal's room before Neal finishes with the physio. It'll buy him a few more seconds, he supposes. And look a little less like he's spying on Neal's efforts. 

He doesn't expect to find Elizabeth there, carefully packing the personal effects Neal has accumulated during his stay into a brown leather holdall. 

"El?" Peter blinks at her in surprise.

She looks up at him, equally started. "Hey, hon," she says, pausing only to drop Neal's shaving kit before throwing her arms around Peter's neck and hugging him tightly. "You didn't make it home last night, I was worried."

She pulls back just far enough to kiss him tenderly on the lips, _hello_ and _I love you_ rolled into the gesture like a balm. 

"I'm sorry," Peter sighs. "We had a break in the case. I meant to call but it just..."

"Got away from you?" El says, brows creasing in concern. "Sweetie, you look exhausted. Come sit down for a minute. Should you even have driven out here? You look like you're going to pass out."

"I'm fine," Peter grunts but he lets himself be guided regardless, slumping gratefully into the armchair as Elizabeth runs her fingers through his hair. 

"What are you even doing here?" Peter asks. He closes his eyes in exhaustion as she pets him, weariness suddenly hitting him like a wall. 

"Neal's being discharged today," El says gently. "They got him a place at a rehab clinic not far from June's. He can finish his physiotherapy and any prosthesis appointments from there."

Peter blinks his eyes open in surprise. "He's coming home?"

El nods, smiling at him softly. "This afternoon, yeah. I said I'd give him a ride. Help pack up while his doctors sign him off."

"That's great," Peter manages. 

"What about you?" El asks, concerned. "What brings you out here so early?"

Peter sighs, letting his eyes close again as he explains to Elizabeth how the case finally broke at last, the final details ultimately coming together in the small hours of the morning. Words just seem to fall from his exhausted mind, jumbled and frustrated though El only has to ask him for clarification one or twice. She listens calmly, perched on the edge of Neal's bed as Peter outlines everything. From Hawes and Van Aardt, to Kayle and Freemount, dead malls and frontmen and tangled accounts. By the time he's done Peter feels dizzy with fatigue.

"I have no idea how I'm going to tell him," Peter admits at last. "He's been through so much because the way we handled it all has been nothing but one big, awful mistake. I should have looked harder, the second he disappeared-"

"Sweetie, no," El says firmly. "You can't take all of this on yourself."

Peter scoffs, something ugly and close to tears in his tone and El sighs, blue eyes shadowed with concern. "Look," she says squeezing his hand tenderly, "You have at least another half hour before Neal's due back, why don't you get some rest while you're waiting?" 

She leans closer and kisses his forehead, her thumb smoothing his cheek lovingly. "I have faith in you. You'll know what to say when the time comes."

Peter blinks up at her defeatedly. "I wish I had your certainty. If I fall asleep, you have to wake me when he gets back." 

"Of course," El promises. "Now close your eyes. I'll be right here."

Peter's out like a light within minutes, as if the only thing he'd been waiting for was permission. El watches him for a few moments before quietly getting back to packing Neal's belongings.

By the time Neal returns to his room a half hour later, Peter is snoring like a buzzsaw, so dead asleep El is loath to wake him despite her promise. She shushes Neal with a finger to her lips, momentary amusement dancing in her eyes as she herds him back out into the dayroom instead. 

In the end it's El who explains the details of the case to Neal. She lays everything out methodically, more calmly and certainly more coherently than Peter managed to explain it to her. Like Peter, she honestly hadn't been sure how Neal would handle the news, but by the time it's done he seems to take it stoically, quiet in the face of the convoluted path that brought him here. 

Her instinct though, knows that for a man like Neal appearances are never entirely what they seem. 

His usually expressive gaze remains hooded as they sit together in the silence that comes after, his shoulders hunched and face carefully, inscrutably blank. Neal's anger, El thinks, is as much a chameleon as he is. Sometimes it blows hot and frantic, all shaking hands and impetuous fury. But sometimes it's simply cold; a deeper rage that's bleak and distant and calculated. 

When Neal finally rouses himself enough to look at her, his eyes are like the arctic. 

\---

Peter wakes with a jerk, disoriented and aching, his neck stiff and eyes gummy as he tries to blink away the sleep crust that's formed.

"You awake at last?" Neal asks. "Your stomach was growling louder than your snoring."

Peter squints over at him blearily. Neal is perched on the edge of the bed, crutches propped up beside him, staring back at Peter mildly. 

"How long was I asleep?" Peter grunts.

"Few hours. You missed lunch. Oh, and Elizabeth's extremely comprehensive case review on Freemount Capital, in case you were wondering," Neal says. "She's very good at it. You should consider hiring her."

Peter huffs in resignation. "I'll be sure to pass on your feedback," he says. "Where is El, anyway?"

"Putting the suitcases in the car. She'll be back in a minute."

"She was supposed to wake me," Peter grumbles. 

Neal shrugs indifferently. "I guess she decided to let sleeping agents lie."

Peter stretches, moaning in relief as his back pops audibly. Neal scrunches up his nose in vague distaste but for once refrains from commenting. 

"Gotta' say you don't seem too happy for a guy who's finally getting his discharge papers," Peter comments as he stiffly levers himself to his feet. 

Neal shrugs, staring idly out the window as Peter tugs ineffectually at his now hopelessly creased suit. 

"I've been here almost a month already," Neal sighs. "Now I get shuffled on to some rehab place for who knows how long. I'm just swapping out one bunch of walls for another at this point."

Peter's stomach growls again before he can reply and Neal rolls his eyes in sudden irritation. "You want a Jell-O cup over there or something? I'm sure there's probably leftovers in the day room."

Peter grimaces. "I hate Jell-O."

"Everybody hates Jell-O, that's why there's leftovers," Neal snaps sharply.

Peter blinks at him in surprise. "Okay," he says carefully. 

Neal's jaw clenches, anger suddenly tight beneath the surface. It seems to simmer there, unspoken and impotent, words half formed on his lips before they're swallowed once more.

"Neal?" Peter asks carefully. "Are you okay?"

Neal's hands have clenched tightly against the side of the bed, something bleak and fragile crossing his face before it too is mercilessly squashed, replaced instead with a bitter sort of fury.

"Of course I'm not fucking okay, Peter," he grinds out. "I have one leg, probably half a million dollars in medical debt, and I want to know what's going to happen to me." He glances at Peter scornfully before turning his attention back to the window. "Don't think I haven't noticed no one put the anklet back on."

Peter's brow furrows in confusion. "Of course they didn't. You were in intensive care."

Neal grimaces. "That was weeks ago. I assumed once I was up and about-"

"You want the anklet back?" Peter asks, disbelievingly. "I thought you'd be pleased to be rid of it."

"I want to know what it means for our deal," Neal spits. 

Peter frowns. "Our deal? Christ, Neal, you almost died. All I want is for you to get better. We can worry about the rest of it later."

"And what if I don't get better?" Neal yells. "This leg isn't going to magically grow back. I am _useless_ like this. You think I don't know what that means?"

Peter stares at him, shocked. "Neal-"

"It means prison, Peter," Neal hisses. "Again. Only this time in a wheelchair with an 'FBI snitch' mark on my head." 

"You know I won't let that happen," Peter manages. He shakes his head in disbelief. "Why would you even think that?"

"Maybe because you spent three years reminding me at every turn that you could throw me back the second I stopped performing the way you wanted," Neal snarls. "Don't you dare pretend it never crosses your mind."

Peter takes a sharp breath, recoiling as if physically struck. It takes him a moment to formulate a response and when he does it is with purposeful, forced calm. "That's enough, Neal," he says quietly. "I get that you've been through a lot, and you're pissed at the world, but that doesn't mean I'm going to be your punching bag."

Neal doesn't reply, mouth pressed into a thin, hate-filled line. For a long moment Peter is speechless, unable to reconcile this brittle, spiteful creature with the Neal he thought he knew. He's still trying to do so when El bustles in, her sudden unwitting presence slicing briskly through the tension.

"Alright, I got the bags loaded and picked up your prescriptions from the pharmacy," she says, barely glancing up from her phone. "Mozzie's called six times so far and June's ordering dinner for you tonight so wants to know if you have any requests. Don't worry, I already specified no gelatin or pudding cups."

Peter clears his throat awkwardly, glancing across at Neal before attempting to fix El with a serious stare. "Your husband however would like to remind you that you promised to wake him three hours ago."

El blinks up at him innocently. "Well, my husband also promised to come home last night and then didn't, so I'd say we're probably even." She flicks the tip of his nose playfully before grinning. "Besides, I would prefer it if my husband didn't get into a multi-car pile-up on the Turnpike because he fell asleep at the wheel. You look a lot better after getting some rest."

She brushes a kiss against his jaw before turning to Neal. "And you, I hope, have signed any and all appropriate paperwork."

"I used my real name and everything," Neal says, sneering faintly. 

"Well, good," El says, dropping her phone into her purse. "Let's get you out of here, before Mozzie stages a jailbreak and tries to get you deprogrammed from the mind-control drugs they apparently put in the applesauce."

"El, hon, could you maybe give us a moment?" Peter asks quietly.

El looks back and forth between her husband and Neal in surprise before frowning. "Oh. Of course," she begins.

"No, it's fine," Neal interrupts. He thrusts his crutches in Peter's direction before manoeuvring himself into his wheelchair. "I really think we're done here."

"You sure?" Elizabeth checks.

"Positive," Neal grumbles. 

El looks back at Peter questioningly. He shoots her a pained glance but doesn't argue. Neal seems willing to let El push his chair without complaint so Peter trails behind them silently, crutches tucked carefully in the crook of his arm. 

\---

El drives Neal back to the city while Peter follows in his own car, mind churning restlessly. Neal's behaviour itches in the back of his head. Not just as a personal affront, that Neal could ever think Peter would be so cruel, but because even he can see it isn't really about Peter's opinion in the first place. Neal's assessment of himself is the more troubling aspect. If he sees himself as broken and disposable, it seems less of an intuitive jump for him to assume other people will think it as well. It nags at Peter's thoughts, something wrong and out of place, a problem that needs solving but that hovers just out of reach.

Peter's still mulling it over an hour later as he pulls up across the street from El's car. She's parked at the side of June's house, passenger door open wide as she helps Neal shuffle back into his chair. He looks a little confused when Peter jogs across the street to join them and immediately opens the trunk to start pulling out bags.

"What are you doing?" Neal asks. Peter stares at him, nonplussed. 

"Fetching your luggage," Peter says. He drops the smaller of the two holdalls unceremoniously into Neal's lap. 

"I can see that, but why?" Neal pushes.

El raises one eyebrow at the pair of them. "Well, you can't leave it in the car forever," she says. 

Neal huffs in frustration. "I mean why are we taking it to June's if I'm staying at the clinic?"

El stares at him. "You're not staying at the clinic, Neal," she says carefully. "Well, you can if you want to, I guess, but since they do outpatient services we thought you'd be more comfortable at home." 

Neal doesn't reply and El's frown deepens. "Did we get it wrong?" she asks. "I guess I just assumed."

Neal swallows hard, eyes closing for a second as if struggling to articulate a response and Peter clears his throat pointedly.

"Maybe we should work this out inside?" he suggests. He grabs Neal's crutches and the remaining luggage with an incredulous huff. "Seriously, you are the only person I know with a Louis Vuitton hospital bag."

El's just about to push Neal's chair before his hands fly down to the wheel rims, holding them in place. "Why does no one else want to see it?" Neal grits out angrily. "This is ridiculous. I can't live here."

Elizabeth stares down at him, shocked. "I don't... Sweetie, why would you say that?"

Peter watches silently as Neal's face crumples, the expression so foreign it takes a moment before he finally understands. It's alien because the look is one of shame. Naked humiliation, broken and raw, and as he stares up towards the ornate front door Peter suddenly gets it.

"You can't climb the stairs," he says simply. "So you thought you wouldn't be coming back."

El makes a small, soft noise of distress, eyes wide as she shakes her head. "Oh, Neal," she breathes, wrapping her arms around him tightly from behind. Her cheek presses against his burning red ear, close enough to feel the flex of his jaw as he swallows.

She buries her face into the crook of his neck for a moment, only pulling back to press her lips against his temple. "In the hospital, the first day you woke up, I _promised_ you that we would do this together," she says. "All of us. That you wouldn't be on your own. So trust me. Just for two minutes. And after that, if you still don't want to be here then we can go anywhere you want. No questions asked."

The pause that follows is long and pregnant, a frozen tableau on the sidewalk that in the back of his head Peter distantly fears may wind up being permanent. When Neal's fingers finally and grudgingly uncurl, releasing the wheels, it's like an exhale, the world suddenly able to breathe again. 

El blinks rapidly as the chair starts to move, taking a shaky glance at Peter before she presses a kiss to the top of Neal's head. "Okay," she murmurs as she guides the chair away from the steep front steps and instead around to the seldomly used back entrance. 

The first thing Peter realises is that it's been recently re-paved. June's back yard was never untidy but now it's immaculate, a short, shallow ramp leading up to the door that previously opened into a utility space. The mudroom however has clearly been sacrificed for a better cause because when they get inside it's to find June standing in front of a small, tastefully decorated brass and wood-effect domestic elevator. 

Peter's jaw drops at the sight, realising only a moment later that, for once, so has Neal's.

"Neal, darling! Welcome home," June says. She steps forward and embraces him tightly, delicate fingers petting through his hair. Neal's hands are shaking as he clutches the back of June's jacket, breathing uneven as he soaks in the fragrant waft of her perfume. 

June looks a little misty herself when she finally pulls back. "The place has been just too quiet without you," she states. 

"June," Neal gapes. "How-" He shakes his head in disbelief. "You built me an elevator?"

June raises both her eyebrows imperiously, propping her hands on her hips as if offended.

"I would have the record show," she insists, "That for all tax-related purposes, I built _myself_ an elevator, purely to future-proof the home I intend to remain in through my eventual dotage. I am merely allowing you to make temporary use of it in the meantime."

The statement startles a laugh out of Neal, the sound suspiciously wet, and June's expression softens. "Now, how about you take this thing for a spin?"

Neal nods, the smile on his face fragile but honest for the first time in weeks and June presses the control to slide the door open, following Neal in and hitting the button for the fourth floor. 

"The luggage," she says as the door closes, "Can take the stairs."

\---

They eat that evening around Neal's dinner table. There's baklava from that place in the Village that Neal likes but rarely get the chance to go to, and seltzer water instead of wine, but it's good. It's... _nice_. Though by the time Peter, El and June finally leave, Neal is both exhausted and aching. The second his apartment's empty he grabs the pharmacy bag Elizabeth left on the kitchen counter and unrolls the top, dumping out the contents on the table. Little orange plastic tubs scatter like confetti and he picks through them resignedly, lining up a small army of assorted dietary supplements, antibiotics, painkillers and Xanax. 

The antibiotics are precautionary; a clinical response for the throbbing ache that keeps flaring in his hip. He swallows a dose of them dry, following them down with an analgesic chaser. His hand hovers over the Xanax, hesitating before deliberately pushing it to the back unopened. He rubs a hand across his face, scrubbing at the tired, dry itch of his eyes. 

He wants to sleep, but that's all he's done for weeks already. He pulls himself up unsteadily on his crutches and hobbles to the bathroom, flinching a little when he discovers that here, too, June has made some subtle but necessary alterations. There's a grab rail and a bench seat in the shower now, and another rail by the toilet. They're unobtrusive, copper-finished additions styled to tie in with the rest of the decor, the gently antiqued patina making them look like they could have been there all along. A design choice, not a necessity. They're not like the plastic and steel ones in the hospital and Neal's honestly not certain whether to be touched that June went to such effort or humiliated that he's so transparent. 

His vanity has taken enough of a beating in the last month that he chooses not to dwell on it.

Neal takes his time pottering in the bathroom. He washes up, brushes his teeth and shaves his face with significantly more care than usual. Certainly more care than he bothered with recently. If he locked himself in the bathroom for an hour at a time even in a private hospital suite he would have had someone knocking on the door to check on him eventually. The quiet is a relief, and the solitude a luxury, though even as he thinks it something tight balls up in his stomach. 

His hand clenches around the crutch he's leaning on as he wipes the excess shaving cream from his face. If he slips here, falls, hurts himself badly enough that he can't get up, it would be hours, maybe even a day or more until somebody found him. Just lying there, unable to move. On the floor. Trapped. For a second all he can smell is rotting paper, thick and cloying in his nose, making his heart race inside his chest.

Neal squeezes his eyes shut and tries to breathe through the sudden swell of panic. He's being ridiculous. He knows he is. Peter found him, Hawes is in prison, and Van Aardt is dead. The only smell is the soapy menthol tang of shaving foam and toothpaste but when he opens his eyes the face in the mirror looks half-wild and haunted. He turns away in disgust, breathing hard, hobbling back through to the kitchen as fast as he can manage. His body betrays him in his haste, stumbling unsteadily as he catches one crutch against the edge of the rug, grip slipping as he curses. He doesn't fall but the crutch catches hard against the inside of his arm, crushing a red stripe like a brand on the thin skin. He hisses in pain, pulse jumping, palms sweating as he tightens his hold.

It's still early but Neal flips the lights off angrily as he goes, shoving the crutches to the floor in revulsion as he falls into bed. The sheets are cold against his skin and he yanks them up to his ears with hands that seem to shake beyond his control. He's panting, he thinks dimly, somewhere in the back of his head. Why is he panting? His throat feels tight, the drum of his heartbeat pounding viciously inside his ribs like it's trying to burst its way out. Somewhere downstairs a door slams, the sound cracking through the old house like a gunshot and Neal freezes, muscles locking rigid in expectation. The memory of pain seems to swell from nowhere, hot and red, searing through his awareness, filling his senses.

The noise that falls from his lips is muffled by the sheets, muffled like the bag over his head, mouth pressed into the pillow as he sobs convulsively. The fresh linen tastes of damp paper, coating his tongue with mould as panic fills his throat, washing through like a cold tide, pulling him under.

His knee hurts. It doesn't even exist but it hurts like fire and stinks like rotting meat and it makes no sense. None of it makes sense. He can't breathe, he can't think, he can't move-

The sheets seem to tighten like tape around his limbs, wrapping him, suffocating, trapped on wet concrete like a fever dream evaporating. 

\---

He regains awareness an indeterminate time later. It's a slow, seeping process, groggy and disoriented; a bloated corpse floating up from the bottom of a frozen lake. The sky is dark beyond the windows and his face sticky with salt. The bed beneath his hips is wet, and in the interstitial space between sleeping and waking he burns, terrified and ashamed.

\---


	6. Six

Eight-thirty in the morning is probably a little too early to be whistling so cheerfully but Peter makes no particular effort to stop as he lopes up the stairs to Neal's apartment. The weather is beautiful, he actually slept in his own bed for a solid nine hours last night, and Neal is home where he belongs. Jones sent through an update late the evening before that the CEO of Freemount had rolled on his executive board's involvement in the money-laundering, and they'd all been fighting ever since to try and strike the first deal to identify who ordered the beat-down on Neal. 

It was, apparently, giving the DA's office the good kind of headache. 

Peter raps on Neal's door jauntily, rocking back on his heels and smiling as he waits.

And waits.

His smile slips a little as he knocks again, and then again, harder, a few minutes later.

"Neal?" he calls through the door. "It's Peter. You okay in there, buddy?"

He listens quietly at the wood panel before reaching down to twist the knob experimentally. It's not locked and clicks open under his hand. He pushes it forward a crack, calling through the gap.

"Neal? You awake?"

He pauses, waiting for a reply but the apartment is silent and he frowns in concern. 

"I hope you have pants on," he mutters as he lets himself in. The kitchen and dining area is empty, and there's no sound from the bathroom. The apartment would seem deserted if not for the scattered pill bottles strewn across the table. The lid is missing from one, little white tablets spilled out on the wood and Peter steps closer to read the label. His breath catches and he turns, a little more frantically now, finally spotting Neal on the floor by the side of the bed. He's face-down and naked, tangled in his crutches, the sheets seemingly torn from the mattress and strewn haphazardly around him.

"Neal!" he gasps. He drops to his knees at Neal's side, fingers pressing anxiously into the hinge of Neal's jaw, seeking out a pulse for the second time in as many months. He lets out a trembling curse as he finds one, strong and steady under his fingertips. The touch seems to be enough to rouse Neal slightly, Peter's fingers digging into his shoulder making him huff and mumble incoherently against the rug.

"Neal," Peter urges. "Come on, buddy, I need you to open your eyes, alright?"

Neal grunts vaguely, fingers clutching at nothing as Peter carefully rolls him onto his side, easing the crutches out from underneath him. He's floppy and drooling a little, loose-limbed and docile. 

"I need to know what you took, Neal. And how many," Peter demands. He cups Neal's flushed cheek firmly, shaking his shoulder until Neal's eyes roll open blearily. "Neal?" he demands again, "What did you take?"

Neal blinks at him uncomprehendingly, mouth lax as Peter shakes him again.

"Neal?" he demands. "Was it the Xanax?"

Neal hums, nodding faintly as his eyes slide closed.

Peter curses. "How many, Neal?" he insists. "You need to tell me how many you took."

Neal waves his hand limply, holding up two fingers, then four, then three before seeming to shrug, no longer certain. Peter sighs, staring up at the ceiling for a moment as if begging it for strength.

"You stupid son of a bitch," he mutters under his breath. He curls his arms under Neal's lax shoulders, grunting at the deadweight as he levers Neal at least partially upright. "Let's get you on the bed, alright, buddy?" he huffs, straining to lift the uncooperative mass back onto the bare mattress. 

He's sweating by the time he gets Neal moved, face damp with exertion as he slumps down to sit by Neal's hip. He pushes a curl of dark hair away from Neal's forehead carefully, broad palm framing the warmth of his jaw again as he rubs his thumb across the sharp ridge of Neal's cheekbone.

Slitted blue eyes stare back at him mournfully, exposed and trusting as Peter hangs his head for a moment.

"Neal," he says carefully. "I need you to tell me something, and it's important, okay? I need you to be honest."

There's a faint nod in reply, Neal squinting at him as Peter sighs shakily.

"Was this an accident? Or were you-" his voice falters for a second and he swallows convulsively, forcing himself to meet Neal's gaze. "Were you trying to hurt yourself?"

Neal's eyes widen a fraction, dampening as he stares back at Peter almost pleadingly. He shakes his head, a fresh tear escaping as he blinks owlishly before shaking his head again, more urgently this time. A faint sob chokes in Neal's throat as Peter breathes a sigh of relief, pulling Neal up and into the tight curl of his arms. 

"Don't-" Neal's voice is slurred, wet with tears and hitching against Peter's shoulder as he hangs limply in the other man's embrace. "Don't wanna die. Don't. Don't wanna."

Neal buries his nose against Peter's jacket, squeezing his eyes shut as Peter presses a comforting, warm hand against the back of his head. "Was jus' so scared," Neal breathes. "So scared..." 

\---

Neal is discharged from hospital for the second time two days later. The doctors tell Peter that the overdose wasn't massive. It wasn’t even past the maximum prescribable amount, but Neal had been on a very, very low dose prior to that, and the additional quantity he'd taken had reacted with both his antibiotics and the Percocet he'd been given for pain management. The psychiatric consultant was willing to believe that it was an episode of misadventure rather than an attempt at self-harm, though he also recommends Neal be further evaluated for PTSD.

He's released into Peter's care, somewhat chastened, with an altered prescription and a standing appointment with a therapist.

They don't talk on the drive back to June's. 

A small part of Peter wants to sermonise like a disappointed father, railing at him for doing something so goddamned stupid. But one look at Neal slumped despondently beside him in the car stays the words on his lips. After all these years Peter can read Neal well enough to know that anything he could say has already scrolled through Neal's head at least twice already. 

He leaves it be and takes Neal home without comment.

\---

Peter goes back to work full time again on Monday morning. He starts the day by having a very long conversation with the Deputy Director of the FBI, something he does with the door shut and the blinds dropped. 

Diana and Clinton exchange glances when he finally emerges, standing to lean against the rail overlooking the bullpen.

"If I could have your attention for a moment," Peter states, watching as the usual low-level office hum dies down and people turn to look at him. 

"I know you've all worked incredibly hard these past few weeks." He pauses, waving one hand apologetically. "You work hard all the time," he amends, "But this past month in particular. I know, despite occasional differences, a lot of you have come to see Neal as one of us. No matter how frustrating he could be, or how far off the book he went, he was still a part of this team. For good or ill, that made this case personal."

He looks down at the expectant faces staring back at him and swallows. "I just wanted to thank you all, for your good work, and for assisting Agent Berrigan and Agent Jones in my absence. I know I haven't been here as much as I should have, but your support means a lot to me, and it helped bring Neal home. This is a good team; you do difficult work and you do it well, and I hope you are as proud to be a part of it as I am."

He holds his hand up before anyone can really respond, a brief smattering of applause dying out swiftly at the gesture. "There is one other thing before I let you get back to work; something I wanted to share with you." Peter tightens his grip against the railing. "Given the circumstances, the Deputy Director has agreed that Neal's commutation hearing should be brought forward. Assuming the Director also agrees, the board will be meeting at the end of the week. If anybody wishes to make a statement either for or against, you are entitled to do so." He looks across the silent bullpen, the tension easing from his shoulders minutely as he catches Dianna's approving nod. "I can't tell you what to say," he continues, "I can only ask you to be honest." 

Peter hesitates, hanging his head for a moment before meeting those expectant gazes one more time. "Neal's my friend. And I truly believe that working here, with all of you, has made him a better man. But I have spent the last few weeks watching him struggle to find a way back because his parole left him under _my_ protection and I failed him." Peter swallows roughly. "I don't expect to be forgiven for that. But I can use my voice to say that enough is enough. He has served his time and in doing so paid a greater price than I can justify."

Peter straightens up, pulling himself to his full height authoritatively. "If you have anything you wish to contribute, the board will be hearing petitions on Friday morning. You can consider this as blanket permission to attend if you want to." He nods once, decisively. "Alright. Dismissed."

Peter steps back, waiting only a second for the quiet murmur of chatter to resume before heading back into his office and deliberately sliding the door closed. 

\---

The physiotherapy clinic is only a couple of blocks away from June's place, but she insists on making sure Neal is driven there and back every day. It's close enough to tempt his independence but just too far for him to make it all the way under his own steam yet. The limitation frustrates him so when Mozzie shows up towards the end of the week he takes the opportunity to make the other man push his chair to the park just for a change of scenery. He lurches around on his crutches for a while experimentally, before perching himself on a bench to enjoy the midday sun. 

"Had a prosthesis appointment this morning," he comments idly. "They think in another month or two they should be able to try fitting one."

"A wooden leg?" Mozzie muses. "How piratical."

"Might get a parrot to go with it," Neal agrees. "Or an eyepatch."

"And a tricorn," Mozzie enthuses. "You do like hats."

They stare at each other seriously for a long second before breaking and giggling at the sheer absurdity. It's liberating in its own strange little way; a taste of normalcy in the chaos and Neal leans back comfortably, content to watch the world go by for a moment.

"How was the visit to the head-shrinker?" Mozzie asks. "That was yesterday, right?"

Neal shrugs lazily. "Fine, I suppose," he says. "I mean we've only had one session so she's not exactly plunging the depths of my subconscious right now."

Mozzie makes a face and Neal smiles faintly to himself. "I know your opinion on the matter, but she's mostly interested in this thing," he says, waving vaguely at his rolled-up pant leg, "And the fact is that if I want any meds stronger than Tylenol now I don't have a whole lot of choice."

"There are no facts, only interpretations," mutters Mozzie reflexively and Neal rolls his eyes in disgust.

"Nietzsche? Seriously?"

Mozzie shrugs. "We all have our coping mechanisms. I consider a little light nihilism to be therapeutic."

Neal snorts dismissively, tilting his head back to stare at the trees swaying overhead. 

Mozzie seems uncharacteristically pensive for a moment, fidgeting until Neal finally turns to look at him, raising one eyebrow questioningly. 

"Something on your mind, Moz?" Neal asks. 

"Not really," he says, a little too quickly. "I guess it's just... end of an era."

"Everything has to end eventually," Neal says softly. "Even this."

"Yeah, but, not yet," Mozzie sighs. "Not like this. We still had plans. And now..." he gestures morosely at the park around them. “No more White Whale.”

Neal stares back up at the canopy above them and shrugs. 

\---

They head back to the house eventually for a late lunch, and so Neal can take his next round of pills while Mozzie takes advantage of Neal's wine rack.

"Oh, I forgot to say, I found you a dentist," Mozzie says suddenly.

"A dentist?" Neal shoots him a cynical glance. He's perched in front of a half-finished Klimt replica, brush poised over a puddle of soft brown umber.

"Jimmie the Fish," Mozzie continues, waving his wine glass vaguely. "He works out of the top floor of the Tiki Palace. Very good reviews. He replaced all of Little Tony Blanco's top teeth after that incident with the Chileans. You can barely even tell."

"I'm not seeing a dentist called Jimmie The Fish," Neal says.

"He comes very highly recommended," Mozzie adds, affronted.

"And I already have a dentist," Neal points out. "One that doesn't operate out of a cocktail bar."

"But do you get a free daiquiri after he does your veneers?" asks Mozzie pointedly. 

Neal merely rolls his eyes. "Answer's still no, Moz."

"Fine," Mozzie sighs. "Suit yourself." He pours himself a refill and Neal sighs.

"Are you going to drink all of that?"

"Well you can't have any," Mozzie points out. "So someone has to finish it."

"You only have to finish it because you opened it," Neal mutters, turning back to his painting.

The familiarity of it all is comforting and Neal finds something inside his chest unwinding as Mozzie takes up his usual space on the couch, muttering occasionally as he flicks his way through June's library. 

It's calming, Neal thinks, brush sweeping in precise, measured strokes, reclaiming the space with familiar ease. The picture before him is beautiful, a faithful mirror of its origin. It’s proof perhaps that not all of him is as irreparably altered as he’d feared. 

At some point Thursday afternoon turns into Thursday evening, hours stretching away in quiet companionship, the sky fading pink and orange over the top of the buildings. It casts long shadows through the valleys between skyscrapers, headlights gliding slowly through the encroaching gloom.

"The commutation hearing's tomorrow," Neal says suddenly. He leans back from his painting for the first time in hours, blinking at it now as if seeing it for the first time. "I'm technically still on medical leave so my presence was not required. They're letting Peter speak as my representative."

"It's been left up to a room full of Suits?" Mozzie asks, disgusted. "May as well get you fitted for the orange onesie right now."

"You don't know that," Neal sighs. He drops his brush into a jar full of thinners before wiping his hands on a nearby rag. "Kramer only wanted to keep me last time because he thought I was too useful to let go. That's not exactly an issue any more." 

Mozzie scowls though mercifully doesn't comment. "Just remember," he says instead, "No matter what happens, I can have you out of here and headed to a nation with no extradition treaty within two hours."

"I think my running days are behind me." Neal glances down ruefully. "My walking days, too."

"Are you kidding me right now?" Mozzie asks, affronted, hauling himself off the sofa to refill his wine glass again. "It's a smuggler's dream! Do you have any idea how often airport security actually check _inside_ a prosthetic limb? Almost never! They're all too scared of getting sued for discrimination. You could roll up a whole Picasso down one of those things and they'd never even look twice."

"I'd look," Peter comments suddenly from the doorway. "And thank you for the heads up, I'll have TSA keep an eye open."

Neal does his best to hide his amusement as Peter lets himself in, but judging by the look Peter shoots him he fails miserably at it.

Mozzie rolls his eyes. "Hypothetically, Suit," he insists. "The ambient humidity would make it sub-optimal storage for antique canvas, naturally."

"Naturally," Neal echoes, smirking.

"Plus, the mechanism in the knee would complicate things." Mozzie concedes. "You could maybe get a Turner rolled up in the calf though."

"Please stop talking," Peter says.

"You all set?" Neal asks instead, wheeling himself back from the easel. "Fighting for my virtue tomorrow."

"Your virtue is long gone," Peter mutters. "Though I do have something for you." 

Peter drops a file onto the table. "Section Chief Bancroft wrote a statement, personally, to recommend your commutation. He also sends his regards since apparently he still remembers your visit to the White Bored exhibit with some sort of actual fondness."

Neal blinks in surprise. "Bancroft? Wow. They brought out the big guns this afternoon."

"Yeah, well," Peter shrugs awkwardly. "I'll be honest your chances are good even without it. Given the way things went down you know you could probably sue the Bureau for reckless endangerment."

"Interesting," muses Mozzie. "Tell me more."

Neal shoots him a chastising glare before turning back to Peter. "You know I wouldn't."

Peter nods. "Yeah. But they don't know that, and the last thing they want is the press you could generate." He fixes Neal with a wary stare. "That's not to say it's guaranteed," he adds. "They could still change their mind and if that happens I want you to know that our deal still stands. I'm not sending you back to prison. You might be on desk duty for a while but we'll work something out."

Neal nods in understanding, attention already turned back to the sunset outside. 

Peter smiles faintly as he pushes open the balcony doors. He urges Neal through ahead of him before taking a seat on one of the patio chairs. The sun sets in orange silence behind the city skyline as they sit there, the sky dipping to navy blue before Neal finally speaks. 

"I'm sorry," he says eventually, "For what I said to you in the hospital."

Peter waves it off. 

"I'm not," he says simply. "You were right, and I know I'm not blameless." He turns to stare at Neal, eyes tracking over the half-shadowed planes of his upturned face. "I hope you get what you want tomorrow," he says softly. "Whatever they decide."

\---

Friday morning comes and goes with no word from Peter. All of El's and June's calls demanding an update go straight to voicemail. Neal doesn't bother calling. As he tells Mozzie when they meet for his post-physio roll around the park, if everyone else is already doing it for him, why waste the effort? It's not going to change the outcome either way.

He spends the afternoon sketching, laying the groundwork for a composition of his own for a change.

"Saint Leonard," he tells Mozzie with a wry grin.

"Derivative," Mozzie huffs. "If you're going to copy Raffaellino del Garbo at least do it honestly."

Neal shrugs, unperturbed, only waving distractedly as Mozzie lets himself out. 

He's brushing on the first layer of gesso when Peter finally appears at his door. The look on Peter's face is enough to make him pause and he lays his brush down carefully, turning his wheelchair to face the other man.

Peter's expression is tired and serious, his tie and hair askew as if he's spent the day tugging on them.

"They made a decision," Neal says carefully.

Peter nods, silently.

"And what did they decide?" Neal asks.

Peter hangs his head, shoulders slumping as he pulls the tracking anklet from his pocket.

Neal's breath catches, stomach sinking as Peter stalks out onto the balcony. He rolls his chair out after him, Peter half silhouetted against the pink sky where he stands by the railing.

"You want to know what they decided?" Peter demands angrily. "You had twenty-three people petition for your freedom, Neal. _Twenty-three_. All of them said that you deserved to be released and do you know what the panel decided?"

Neal swallows, uncertain what to say. "Peter, I-"

"They said yes!" Peter yells furiously. For a moment his face is frozen before it splits into a ridiculous grin, his arm curling back as he hurls the anklet as hard and as far as he can off June's roof. 

It's a hell of a throw, Neal thinks for a split second. The kind of throw that would have made a baseball career. In the sudden breathless silence, only the faint sound of breaking glass and a car alarm being triggered are audible.

"They said yes, Neal," Peter repeats, softer this time, his expression glowing. "You're a free man. Fair and square."

Neal stares at him, jaw slack, uncomprehending. "You asshole," he finally breathes. He can't stop the laugh that suddenly bubbles out. "You scheming, ham-acting asshole."

"I had you going though," Peter grins proudly. 

"Yes, yes you did," Neal admits. "And you also threw that anklet through someone's car window."

Peter hesitates, a brief look of concern flashing over his face as if only just realising that fact.

"Yes, I did," he says flatly.

"You should probably go deal with that," Neal suggests.

"Yes, I probably should."

They stare at each other for a second.

"Okay then."

"Yep." 

For a minute neither of them moves, the moment stretching until Peter finally sighs, shoulders drooping as he grudgingly stalks off. As Peter lets himself out, Neal leans his head back against the stone balustrade and laughs and laughs and laughs.

\---


	7. Epilogue

**Two Years Later**

Peter gets out of the elevator on the 21st floor, nodding good morning as he passes the handful of agents already hard at work in the bullpen.

"You have a visitor," Diana warns as he passes her desk and Peter sighs in resignation, nodding as he lopes up the stairs.

He pushes open his office door and glares.

"You're in my seat," he grumbles. "And those files were confidential."

Neal grins up at him, hat cocked at a rakish angle as he leafs unashamedly through the case file that Peter had left locked in a drawer last night.

"If they were that confidential you wouldn't have asked my advice," he replies. 

"That's beside the point," Peter mutters. "Now move."

Neal flashes him a sad expression, blue eyes wide. "Peter, are you seriously refusing a disabled man a comfortable seat?"

"Neal," Peter warns flatly. "Stow the crap and get out of my chair."

"So heartless," Neal scolds, grabbing his cane. He still limps but the narrow silver-topped stick is more an affectation than mobility aid these days. The insanely expensive prosthetic leg he recently upgraded to moves fluidly beneath the sleek line of his suit as he flops into the visitor chair instead. 

"So," Neal continues. "You called me in, what's the case?"

"You're holding it," Peter sighs as he reclaims his chair. "You've probably already heard, but there's been a fairly high-profile string of international museum thefts in the last year. We think our guy is going to be hitting New York next."

"Certainly fits the pattern," Neal muses as he reads. "Ooh, the Ashmolean. Nice."

"He's good," Peter grouses. "Almost as good as you."

Neal makes a dismissive noise. "If he was as good as me you wouldn't be this close to finding him."

"Finding him is one thing," Peter says. "Making the charges stick is another. He's slippery."

Neal glances up at that. "So, you have suspicions but no proof?" he asks.

Peter groans. "Don't, Neal."

"Don't, what?" Neal asks, innocently. 

"That look," Peter warns. "I know that look."

"I don't have a look," Neal says.

"You do, and it's on your face right now. Don't even think about it. He's not another of your collection of misfit toys."

Neal flutters his lashes innocently. "You know Mozzie would probably take that as a compliment."

"I mean it, Neal," Peter warns. "Justice needs to be done."

Neal tosses the file back on Peter's desk with a smile. "As far as I see it," Neal says, rising to his feet, "You have no evidence for these alleged crimes. So really, there's not much I can help you with."

Peter growls in irritation.

"You're really going to do this?" Peter grumbles. "Now?"

Neal smiles broadly, shooting him a wink on the way out.

\---

In the darkness of the pre-dawn, it's almost impossible to make out the faint movement of a black-clad figure nimbly scaling down the rear face of the Morgan Library.

Most observers, however, aren't Neal. 

He flicks his flashlight on just as the boy's feet hit the ground, effectively pinning him in place as Neal blocks the only exit from the alley.

"Brian Denny!" Neal says cheerfully. "Just the man I wanted to meet."

The kid stares back at him, startled. He looks barely out of his teens, rail-thin and wiry, the cuffs of his long-sleeved shirt riding a little too high up his forearms like it's shrunk in the wash.

"How do you know my name?" he demands.

"Seriously?" Neal looks pained. "You're just going to admit your real identity to a shadowy stranger who has you cornered in an alley? How have you not been arrested yet?" 

The boy backs up warily. "Look, man, I don't have anything you want."

Neal aims his torch at the backpack half hidden behind the boy's ankles and smiles, shark-like. "Uh huh. And that's absolutely not a fifteenth-century manuscript that you're stealing. Brian, you are in a great deal more trouble than you know."

Brian grabs the bag defensively. "I don't have to answer to you," he snarls. 

"No, you don't," Neal agrees placidly. "But the FBI are very, very close to finding you. The second you try and fence that book, they're going to have the evidence they need. What I want is to make you an alternative offer."

Brian glares at him suspiciously. "What kind of offer?"

"A job offer."

The boy laughs. "And who the hell are you?"

"Neal Caffrey," Neal nods, tipping his hat. "Security specialist. And you, my young friend, are about three days away from Special Agent Peter Burke of the New York White Collar Division putting you in prison for an extremely long and unpleasant time." He shrugs. "Well, maybe four days, I might have erroneously pointed him in the direction of the MOMA this evening but it's not going to take long before he figures that out."

Brian stares at him in confusion. "What kind of a job?" he asks at last. 

Neal smirks. "Breaking into things," he says. "Legally, of course. I can tell a company that their security is flawed until I'm blue in the face but they don't want to believe it until the evidence is quite literally in their hands. I need someone with your particular skills to assist with the, ah... practical demonstration," Neal says.

Brian cocks his head thoughtfully. "I've heard of you," he admits. "You're like a freakin' legend. Why do you need me?"

Neal shoots him a rueful glance. "I'm not much for shinning down drainpipes these days," he admits. He taps his false leg with the cane, the hollow thunk echoing through the high walls of the alley they're standing in.

"But you, on the other hand," Neal says, pointing his stick in Brian's direction, "Have potential. A little rough around the edges still but I can teach you."

The kid shoulders his bag, shifting uncomfortably. 

"And what makes you think I won't just take what I want and run while I'm supposed to be helping you out?" he argues.

Neal grins knowingly. "There are much more valuable things you could have taken than whatever's in that bag, but you chose not to. The same as with every other job you've pulled. I've seen your work. It's not about the money, is it, Brian? You take things for the thrill of proving you can." Neal glances up at the inky sky for a moment, a brief look of longing passing over his face before he stares once more at the young man before him. "I can give you plenty of opportunity for that, and to an extent I can protect you from the things you've already done. At least get the Feds off your tail for a while. What do you say, Spiderman? You interested?"

Brian looks Neal up and down thoughtfully before finally stepping out of the shadows.

"I'll give you a week to impress me," Brian says. "And then I'm fencing this thing regardless."

"Well that'll be awkward," Neal muses, slinging his arm over a scrawny set of shoulders and turning him towards the classic Jaguar sitting idling by the curb. "Since we have a nine o'clock appointment with the Library's Board of Trustees tomorrow to tell them exactly how terrible their alarm system is."

\---


End file.
